


Uncle Arthur

by Emby_M



Category: Red Dead Redemption
Genre: Abigail and Arthur are Platonic (?) Soulmates, Arthur Steps Up As Dad, Gen, Grief/Mourning, John Assumed Dead, John's One-Year Disappearance, Multi, Original Character(s), Other, Parenthood, Queerplatonic Relationships, Sharing a Bed, Unresolved Emotional Tension, Unresolved Romantic Tension, implied Abigail/John/Arthur, implied John/Arthur
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-12-27
Updated: 2019-07-01
Packaged: 2019-09-28 07:50:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 15
Words: 31,584
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17178827
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Emby_M/pseuds/Emby_M
Summary: Abigail maintains that she's fine. She didn't come when everyone had a timid memorial for John. She doesn't wear black, even when folks around camp are borrowing Hosea's black ties.And in some ways, Arthur's sure that she is fine.-John disappears, and Arthur steps up to help Abigail raise Jack.





	1. John Marston Disappears

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> CW: Grief and Mourning

John Marston disappears early December.

No one knows why he left. Not one person. Least of all, Abigail. Didn't take enough with him for anyone to be sure if he'd up and left, or if he had just taken a walk and- something happened.

Walked off a cliff. Ran into some pinkertons. Trespassed on unfriendly land. Something.

The boys in camp mumble about Marston finding a new gal, at first. Ran off to start a new life, leaving behind an indisposed wife-in-all-but-law and a new baby boy. They said it louder and louder, Dutch insinuating much of it, until a single, near-fatal glance from Abigail hushed them forever.

Arthur doesn't think that's it anyway. Not from what he knows of John. Not from the hours and hours he's spent listening to his worries, anxieties, the clumsy and yet endearing poetry he composes about Abigail. There was no other mistress he could take -- Arthur besides.

That first day, no one's worried. John could have taken a longer route. Then the night falls and no one's worried too much, not when it's unseasonably warm and Abigail can hand baby Jack to damn near anyone in camp, having taught them all the proper way to hold a baby. Jack is a good lil'un, giggly and happy, none too shy around strangers.

But the next day is when Abigail starts fretting. 

Three days and Abigail startles him out of a catnap, pleading for him to go try to track John. He almost says no, but then there's that little lilt in her voice he recognizes from when he found her, when they called each other bird names, and he can't say no.

There's near nothing to be found -- there's sign of Marston in the last couple days, but he must've moved on, without any further lead.

A week, and Miss Grimshaw starts murmuring about -- well, it might be that we need to have a memorial for Mister Marston, and Abigail is smiling too much, with an uneven notch to it, but he hears her sobbing at night.

Two weeks -- they've gone out and tracked, asked in every major town, and some of the minor ones, and no one remembers seeing him, not a man like that, anyway -- Abigail holds Jack too much, afraid to let him out of her sight, but is still hopeful, trying.

She offers to come with, on one of their city visits, fighting their no's until Miss Grimshaw has to push her away from the horses and threaten to tie her to a chair "lest we lose another Marston!" 

And those words were the wrong ones entirely, because Abigail's smile cracks like a flimsy window in a hurricane, and then she's weeping into Miss Grimshaw's skirts as Grimshaw barks at the men to "git, you animals! Give the girl some privacy!"

It's been three weeks and some since Marston disappeared.

Abigail maintains that she's fine. She didn't come when everyone had a timid memorial for John. She doesn't wear black, even when folks around camp are borrowing Hosea's black ties.

And in some ways, Arthur's sure that she is fine. 

But, the nights are getting cold -- real cold, with Christmas approaching. And he can see the deep circles and fine lines worrying their way onto Abigail's face, know she's putting Jack into a bassinet, scared as hell to smother him in her sleep but knowing the nights are getting so cold. He knows she wakes at the slightest noise, since he walked past her room and heard the breathless gasp of "John?" which he had to apologize for-

So- Arthur does the only thing that makes sense to him, and offers to keep Jack warm in her bed.

It's gonna do nothing for the rumors that fly about camp, those ideas those old leches get into their heads about paternity. If John was really the only man doing things with her that could get a woman pregnant, or if it had been Arthur, secreting in behind John's back.

They'd laughed -- Abby and him -- about that idea. But still, people said it.

Abigail laughs at him, at first. She tells him she's fine. She's doing alright, and the cold isn't too bad, and babies are so unpredictable with their bodily functions, and what would people say, Arthur, knowing that you're sleeping in my bed? Merry widow, indeed!

But night settles so cold, with wind that blows through the abandoned houses they took up in.

So Abigail shows up at his door, timidly knocking before peeking in.

"I- know I said I didn't need it-"

"I'm already there," he laughs, throwing his coat back on.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> More to come, soon hopefully.  
> Comments and kudos are always appreciated!


	2. Your Mama Loves You

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> CW: vague mentions of child death, vague mentions of sex work, grief and mourning

Abigail undresses when they get back, peeling off her layers until she's left in a warm shift with sleeves.

Arthur politely averts his gaze, picking up Jack from his fluffy seat, one of those wicker baskets with a pillow. He's swaddled warm in a flannel gown, made with one of his own old shirts.

Maybe the boys who whisper about he and Abigail aren't so wrong in thinking it, but little Jack has clothes made from castings-off from everyone in the gang. It'd be like saying Hosea was Jack's father, when just about everyone knew he had no eye for women. The little babe giggles and gurgles.

"He's such a sweet kid," he says, tucking him into the crook of his arm, bouncing with him a little. Jack chirrups.

"He really is. Doesn't fuss all that much. Sometimes at night, he's quiet too long, though..."

Her meaning goes unspoken, but he gets it. With John gone -- to lose another family member to inattention would be devastating. Jack grasps up at his beard.

She takes her hair down, settling the pins on the side table. The daguerreotype of John is set, picture down, next to it. Arthur doesn't mention it.

"Hello Jackie," he coos, as Jack's little hand grips tight on his beard, "So feisty with your Uncle Arthur, huh?"

Abby laughs, and turns to both of them as she puts on the funny-patterned wrapper they picked up back on the coast. "Are you being nice to Arthur, baby?"

She pushes aside his downy fringe with a single, gentle finger, smiling down at him.

"Isn't that nice, Jack -- your momma really loves you," Arthur murmurs, bringing the joyful but fussy Jack up close between them.

Abigail bites her lip, but smiles, her eyes gleaming in the low light of the fireplace. "Sure do."

She takes Jack from him and settles up onto the bed with him, cooing as she lets down her shift to feed him.

"Want a blanket?" he asks, taking the one from the foot of her bed and barely waiting before settling it across her knees, pressing a kiss to the crown of her head.

"I clearly don't even have the option," she laughs, weakly. He resettles the wrapper over her shoulder to keep her warm in the nippy night air. The fireplace is warm enough, but these houses are always drafty, and it would be no good for anyone if Abigail took ill.

He bends, stoking the fire, settling another log atop the hearth. "I could get another from my tent, if'n you want it," he says, "Or maybe I'll get it so no one thinks any hanky-panky is happening."

She laughs, starting to say something -- but then she shutters back a little, looking down at the suckling Jack, and murmurs, "No, I think- I think I need to be next to you tonight. I need to be close to someone."

He nods, pushing the log further back on the pile with the stoker.

"We could throw the other one on. Or maybe we don't need it, seeing as I'm a pot-bellied stove on my own." He stands and slaps his tummy, making her giggle.

She gestures him over, waiting with a soft little smile. He kicks off his boots beside the bed and comes up beside her, facing in towards her and propping his head on his hand.

"You're always so warm," she murmurs.

"Always have been," he laughs, "Even back when we met."

She smiles, "Still can't believe you."

"A sad-eyed man who refused to touch the woman they sent up for his fun?"

"No, that you took an ewer to the face so enthusiastically," she smirks, "Especially since I think you were more attracted to it than me."

Arthur holds up his hands in surrender. "I'm hardly in the habit of touchin' barely clad teenagers."

"And yet you touched John - when he was?" her voice hitches. Before it even settles-

"I never did nothing more than a kiss or two til he was near 20."

John, paved over. They talked over him, like a rut in the road, and just kept going.

It might have to be what they do.

Arthur feels that yawning chasm too. But there was that-- dogged hope, for the kid who he wrenched free of that mob, that feral raccoon with the rope-burned neck, that he was alive somewhere, hale and healthy and just-- something was keeping him back. Anything but this pain, like losing a limb, like losing part of your heart.

He doesn't say anything. He doesn't have to. It's everything she's feeling, mirrored.

But... It has to be worse for her, after the conversation those two had. After the moment where everything was clear. Where he wanted to stay and she wanted him there.

When Arthur'd seen her that day, the smile on her face had said everything, and warmed his heart. To lose him, lose that certainty - he can't imagine.

"Jack's done -- can you burp him, please?" She says, raising him off her tummy. She speaks so soft, no fight left in her.

"Sure," he says, lifting Jack up. "Where's a towel?"

"Should be one on the chair."

He sets it over his shoulder and raises Jack up onto his shoulder, patting the babe's back.

"Burpin' seems like one of those things that people just do. Like everyone knows to do it," he says, trying to fill the space with words that weren't about John.

Abigail resettles her shift and the pillows and stretches her neck.

"Yeah, guess it is. Lots of books on babies don't say much about, y'know, _babies_ , since people just assume they know."

Arthur laughs, rolling up to his toes and back with Jack, who burps intermittently.

"I knew more about getting rid of babies than raising 'em," Abigail says.

Arthur sways, almost waltzing with Jack. Abigail laughs, climbing over to the end of the bed, eyes tentatively filled again with something like life, something warm and bright and cheerful.

"What are you doing with my baby?" She quips.

"I'm walking him. My mother, I guess, used to walk with me like this, and I'd calm down right away if I was being surly."

"Jack's being a sweetheart, though."

"I know. But I just have this feeling like swaying with a baby's the right thing to do."

She laughs, settling back against the pillows. "Be careful with him."

"Of course. Soft as swan's-down," he smiles, "Are you all good, Jackie? Got all your burps out?"

Jack gurgles, as if he's responding.

"Yeah, that's a good baby. Go to mama, now," Arthur says, handing him down to her again, "You want me with my coat on?"

"Mm, maybe, if it's gonna keep being cold."

"Tell you what, I'll go get that blanket for us. It'll be cozier," he murmurs.

"Alright. I'll change Jack while you're gone."

"Sounds like a plan. Be right back." When her expression freezes, stuck halfway between-- when this fear flits across her face -- he adds, "Promise."

"Of course. You're just walking a couple yards. That's all," she says, smiling unevenly.

He nods, and shuts the door.

It's a little nippy in the corridor, compared to the warm sanctuary of her room. He's kind of glad, actually, that he won't be in his tent tonight.

He drags his fingers through his beard, wandering slowly through the halls of the farmhouse.

He'd always thought that he'd be a good dad. He thought it with Mary -- imagined well-bred kids, that pride he might have for his children, the joy of taking care of them.

He had wanted it with Eliza, until she had told him she was fine, it was fine, she'd be fine on her own. He wishes she could have kept him around.

He remembers Isaac only foggily these days, the kind of baby that seems like its made out of custard. Eliza would write him letters about the funny things Isaac would do -- how he was a none-too-smart but all-too-kind kid, smiling and gummy, how he would roll and roll and roll and scoot and scoot across the floor of Eliza's little home.

It's an opportunity he's always felt ill-fit with. That when he found them dead, that he had no right to mourn, because they'd never been a part of his life.

But this-- Abigail? She was a part of his life. He knew her, the way she was, could learn Jack the same way. He loved Jack. When John had come to him with Jack, Jack who was hours old and crying himself to sleep, and John had said -- this is my _son._

He'd nearly cried. Nearly grabbed John's face and brought him close and kissed him silly, nearly ran into the room where Abigail was and pressed hundred, thousands of kisses to her face with the pure _joy_  he felt for them and- for himself because they loved him like they loved each other and it was all so- so damn much.

Jack had held his finger with his tiny, tiny hand, and he was part of a _family_.

He isn't Jack's dad. He isn't Abigail's husband-in-all-but-law. But he was never John, not even when he was alive. They never wanted him to be.

He ducks into his tent, taking the blanket from his cot. Pearson, in the tent next over, snuffles.

He sits on the floor, burying his face into the blanket and shedding some tears.

John Marston was dead. His love, his best friend, dead. No body even to bury, to look at in horror and disgust but feel like it was all real and visceral like death had forgotten to be for them, for men who murdered. Even for a greater cause.

It washes over him like a tidal wave, like he's drowning. Stifling.

He thinks, briefly, of John's inability to swim, and shudders, deep into his core.

...Abigail's waiting.

Abigail will worry if he takes too long.

He pulls his face out of the blanket that smells like himself, with that dash of Dutch's cologne that lingers after the bottle shattered in the wagon with the blankets. Crying feels strange, too sticky and awkward for a man like him, but it is necessary, as much as he wishes it wasn't.

He scrubs his face and gets up, folding the blanket over his arm.

The hall got colder, with the wind fluttering against his wet cheeks.

He knocks when he gets back. "Abby, it's me," he says, and it's all silent.

Did she fall asleep?

"Abby?" He says, knocking again.

"Yeah," she chirps, voice sounding tight.

Oh.

He ducks into the door, closing it tight behind him. And when he looks up -- his suspicions were correct.

They look at each other with matching red eyes.

"You too, huh?" He says, collapsing back against the door.

She doesn't say anything. Instead, she comes over with the flannel robe John got when he bought Abigail that wrapper.

"I know it won't fit you, but- It would make me feel better," she says, voice so quiet. She doesn't -- can't -- look at him.

He nods, slow and uncertain at first, and then firmly, breathing deeply. "Sure. Anything you need."

He takes off his coat, settling the ill-fitting robe over his shoulders, not even trying to get his arms through.

"Pretty?" he says, posing slow as molasses.

She laughs, wetly, sniffling. "Yeah. Prettiest girl this side of the Mississippi."

"Pssh, you ladies have me beat handily."

She smiles, lopsided but real. She opens her arms, cocking her head a little.

He steps to her, putting his arms around her shoulders and squeezing.

"Thank you," she breathes.

"Of course."

She breathes so deeply. Like she was trying - to get at all that John scent. He can smell it too, that complex, rich, smoky scent -- a little cayenne, a little gunpowder, wildflowers. Campfire smoke and pipe tobacco. Linen.

"Don't hurt yourself."

He says it as much to himself as to her.

Jack gurgles from the bed, where he's freshly changed and falling asleep fast.

"Ah, alright, _cyw_ , let's sleep."

He kisses the top of Abigail's head, and picks Jack up gingerly from where he lay.

"What was that word?" Abigail says, screwing up her brows.

" _Cyw?_ Chick. In Welsh. Just something you call babies."

"You speak Welsh?"

"You know this, _f'anwylyd_. I speak Welsh at you all the time."

"You've been speaking Welsh at me?"

"Yeah. Have you not noticed?"

She kind of screws up her face, blinking quickly.

"... I kind of thought my brain went funny every time you did it, I guess."

He laughs, getting around the other side of the bed and slinging his coat onto the pillow. The lining's quite warm at night, and with Jack on his chest he can't pull the blanket up to his chin like he normally would. He takes off the robe too, setting it on the side.

"Here, let me get you oilcloth, just in case Jack's diaper leaks."

"Oh, thank you," he says, chuckling, "Don't think Miss Grimshaw would be so happy if I gave her this undershirt covered in that mess."

"He's a baby -- he ain't got control over it. Better than horse manure."

"S'pose so. But still."

"Yeah, yeah," she laughs, rolling her eyes, "here's the oilcloth."

She hands it over and they both settle into bed. Arthur carefully slips the oilcloth sheet under Jack, and drapes the robe above him.

"Do you want to help me sing him to sleep?" She murmurs, pulling the blankets around them and settling her head against his shoulder.

"I would love to. What do you sing?"

"Anything. Do you know that one that goes _down in the valley, the valley so low..._?"

"Yeah. _Hang your head over, hear the wind blow_ , right?"

"That's the one. I like to pat him when I sing -- do you mind?"

"Feel free," he whistles, just one line of the verse, as she pats Jack.

" _Down in the valley, the valley so low... hang your head over, hear the wind blow,_ " they sing. He likes Abigail's voice, this kind of rough, deepish voice, but still smooth.

" _Hear the wind blow, dear, hear the wind blow... hang your head over, hear the wind blow._ " They're not quite in sync, Arthur's words a little hesitant, but Abigail pats along to her own singing, and little Jack is too young to complain if he would.

" _Roses love sunshine, violets love dew... angels in heaven know I love you._ " Still, it's nice to sing with someone. He does it infrequently around the fires, a little embarrassed to sing fully. He's not sure he has an ear for it.

" _Know I love you, dear, know I love you... angels in heaven know I love you._ " But he's not really embarrassed here, singing lowly to the babe on his chest, who might like the vibrations of his voice, and to his dearest friend, who rests on his shoulder.

Abigail pauses, smiling when she sees Jack is asleep. Carefully, they roll Jack onto his back and cover him loosely.

"You won't be too cold on your shoulders?" She asks, whispering.

"Naw. Not with my coat, and you on one of 'em."

She brushes his shoulder smooth, acting a little snooty just to be funny, and then settles onto his shoulder, sighing.

"You're a lot better padded than John ever was," she says, quietly.

"Yeah, he was always kinda stringy. Not a good pillow."

"You're warm, too," she says, yawning, "See you in the morning."

"Yeah. Sleep well, Abby."

"G'night."

He presses a kiss to the top of her head, and she smiles, drifting off quickly.

He's sure a newborn is exhausting. He's sure, too, in a couple hours, he'll wake up to Jack yelling for his food, but that'll come in time.

He stares into the fireplace, now dull and only embers. Abigail must have put the fire out, while he was getting the blanket. He stares at it until his eyes slip close, his eyelids heavy.

It's not hard to fall asleep, warm and together, like this.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I had a long vacation to stockpile chapters! In a really ideal world, I can tell a lot of long single or double days within the year without John, and we can all get through that year together. For now, I have four completed chapters, including these two... so expect the next one next week.  
> Down in the Valley is something my mom used to sing to me as a lullaby... no recording available online really does it justice. In a weird way this story's letting me relive my own childhood when I ask my parents about caring for me.  
> I've been doing a lot of research on babies... because you think you know about babies until you write about them. And then you don't. Also, period pieces on child-rearing are nightmarish,,,,,,, Isabella Beeton you never had kids what are you DOING,,,  
> As always, comments and kudos are appreciated!


	3. Are You Planning Something Foolish?

Jack does his thing, waking them up a couple times during the night so he can be fed, burped, and changed.

It's not the worst sleep in the world -- some of those early days when he and Dutch and Hosea were on the run and had to keep running every couple hours, no time to put out a pallet or anything more than a blanket or two against the stiff wintry dirt, that was rough. This, comparatively, is good.

"It's tough to be a momma, huh?" He croaks, when Jack wakes them up near dawn. The pale blue light's cast through the southern-facing window, almost pretty in its wintry charm, and Abigail feeds Jack while lying down, Jack tucked laying between her arm and her torso. If he were more awake, he'd be more impressed, but right now he's the texture of marshmallow, and exhausted beside.

"Mm," she groans, "Suppose so. But he makes it all worth it."

She pets Jack's hair again and smiles this sleepy-fond smile, and Arthur has to smile too.

He wraps an arm around her shoulders when they settle back to sleep, comfortable and exhausted.

 

In the morning, when they wake up proper with Jack, Arthur leaves first, letting Abigail get to her routine in privacy.

Miss Grimshaw is coming out of her room at the same moment, and stares at him.

"Morning, Miss Grimshaw." He touches the brim of his hat.

"Arthur," Miss Grimshaw says, her eyebrows lofted high on her face, "Why are you coming out of Miss Ma- Miss Roberts' room?"

He starts-- about to explain, like he would to anyone -- and then he realizes Miss Grimshaw has gotten the wrong idea entirely.

"Not whatever you're thinking, ma'am. Miss Roberts asked for my help keeping Jack warm at night."

Her incredulous expression relaxes back into one of mild apprehension, but she shrugs. "Well, I know you two are close... So if you've got a handle on it, I trust you."

"Thank you. And uh- you know how folks talk. So keep it hush, I suppose."

"Sure," she says, "I'm not a blabbermouth."

She dips her head, to end the conversation, but he halts her.

"Say, Miss Grimshaw, today's the twenty-second, isn't it?"

"It is, Mister Morgan."

"Are you needing anyone to go into town -- pick up dry goods or cloth or something?"

She cocks an eyebrow, but he smiles wide enough and nice enough that she sighs fondly and says she does, in fact.

"And- out of curiosity- you haven't got some sort of red trousers no one else will be using?"

Grimshaw smiles slyly, settling her coat over her shoulders. "Are you planning something foolish, Arthur?"

"I might be," he drawls, smiling back at her.

"Hmph," Susan huffs, that smile creeping larger as they walk out together, "I suppose if it were for the benefit of little Jack, I could spare you a pair of reddish trousers."

"Marvelous. Now what needs picking up in town?"

Miss Grimshaw gives him a list and some of the camp's cash when they get out to the wagons. Pearson eyes them with some amusement -- Arthur is very rarely the one to fetch supplies -- but says nothing. Perhaps the way Miss Grimshaw treats him like a son, badgering him with the familiarity of years behind them.

"Don't spend recklessly now. I won't be soft on you if you claim it's all for baby Jack."

"Won't do any such thing, ma'am. All my own money for that, I promise." He pats the chest pocket of his coat just to illustrate his point.

"Where did you get your own money?" She says, knocking her hand into his arm.

"I'm the best poker player in camp, now."

She laughs, but it takes a weird edge with the implicit mention of John. Still, they say nothing more on the subject.

Before he goes, he goes to see Abigail, who's started doing some of her chores these days since she's feeling much better. Still, the other women in camp barely let her do anything, always taking over her tasks. It's almost funny, sometimes, when he'll be sitting somewhere and watch her heft a bucket of wash water that Jenny will just take out of her hands, smiling brightly and chirping "I've got it!"

When Dutch does it, as though he was being nonchalant, it's even funnier.

"I'm heading into town. Anything you've been needing? Wanting?"

Abigail fixes him with a look, much like the one Grimshaw had. "You, going into town?"

"I offered. Felt like I needed a change of pace."

She snorts. "That's funny."

He rolls his eyes. "Do you want something other than to make fun of me?"

"Yeah, to bust your chops too-" She guffaws in that almost-ugly laugh John had told him about near every day.

"You're already doing that," he says, crossing his arms over his chest.

She smiles cheekily, but then dips her head, "I could use a new shawl, though. Something warm, maybe hip-length? Wool, maybe."

"Sure. Any color, pattern?"

"Naw," she laughs, pulling her coat closer around her, "I trust your eye. You're good with color."

Jack gurgles from the sling on her front. Arthur pats the bundle, about where Jack's back might be, and smiles.

"I'll be back. Promise."

She laughs and swats at him, but her smile is genuine, grateful. That promise might be something he has to do for her from now on, to keep her from worrying.

So he rides into town. It's not far from where they're camped, a pleasant jaunt with Boadicea over some scrubby brush, a faint dusting of snow on the ground. Must've fallen last night.

Grimshaw was right, he doesn't particularly like going into town. Doesn't like the bustle -- the close-throng that feels a lot like California, like those towns he got to know like he knew his father -- fearfully, warily, lovingly.

Still, this one isn't so bad. Not too tight. Not so many places to hide, slip from the eye.

And he's on a very important mission -- a mission as "Santa Claus".

John had asked him, when Abigail was very pregnant and they had gotten tipsy, when John had laughed at his new wintertime beard and roared laughing about its pale brownish color -- "Sandy Claus!" he shrieked in delight, that funny incoherent way he got when he drank. "Be Santa Claus this year, Arthur," he'd urged, "I want that baby to think Santa exists. For so long."

"So long?" He'd asked, slurring a little.

"Long enough, people laugh at 'em!" John giggled, throwing his hands up.

After a moment, John put his head on the table, still giggling, "I want 'em to stay innocent. Not grow hard and jaded like their pa."

Arthur'd pulled him into his chest, and they'd laughed about being terrible kids who knew too much too soon, but the idea stuck.

So Arthur's Santa this year.

Arthur dismounts Boadicea, hitching her in the center of town and patting her neck. "Awright, gal, where's the dry goods...."

Boadicea whinnies.

Arthur spots it, heading over. The usual type, plain, with a porch, except for the addition of a pretty wreath of pine boughs, decorated with ribbons and round bells. He jingles one as he passes.

The clerk is a young woman, kind of a nut-brown tone to her skin and a long, sloping nose that speaks to a Native ancestry. She counts spools of thread in a box until he comes in fully, ringing another bell as he steps in. Her head snaps up.

"Hello," she says, shoving the box underneath the counter and hurriedly smoothing her apron over her skirt.

"Hello, miss." He removes his hat, dipping his head.

"What can I do for you?" She says, her voice hitching up towards the end.

"I have a list of items I need."

"Oh," she says, gripping and un-gripping her skirt, "Um, sure. Yes. May I have it?"

"Sure," he says, a little smile creeping across his face. She's just as nervous as he is.

He hands her the list, reading the words over with a furrowed brow.

Despite her nervousness, she's a very good shop assistant, deftly explaining the prices of each item -- things like bacon, flour, split peas, stuff Pearson manages to transform into altogether good camp food despite their ribbing -- and haggling with him appropriately. 

When he's set, and he's paid for everything, her face cracks into a victorious smile and she sweeps a piece of her dark hair behind her ear. She tells him the total, and he hands her the amount, with a nice amount left from the cash for Abigail's shawl.

Arthur keeps it close to his chest that he haggles well. Keeps him from being sent into town more often.

"Oh, one last thing, miss... Do you know somewhere around here which sells shawls?"

"Shawls?"

"Yeah, warm ones - wool, or somethin'."

The clerk cocks her head, sucking in her lip. "Is it for you?"

"No, my... uh, my gal."

He supposes it's not inaccurate. Would sister be better? his wife? A friend? What was Abigail to him now?

"Um... I like the ones from Mister Alighieri, down the street-" She says, leaning over the counter and pointing down the street, "Four shops or so. Green sign, 'Alighieri's Dress Goods.'"

"Thank you kindly, miss." He settles his hat back on and dips his head.

"Oh, no problem. Have a good day, sir."

"You too, miss."

The bell rings again as he leaves, and when he passes the wreath, he taps those bells once more.

He straps the new supplies onto Boadicea and pats her neck again.

"Alright. Mister Alighieri. Let's see what he has."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Another chapter! I have one more complete chapter stored up for next Thursday. I wanted to pace this portion of the story like a mission in the game -- complete with interesting Strangers and a couple side missions all throughout. It won't be as Abigail-Arthur focused, but there will be a lot of thinking about Arthur's relationships. If that doesn't appeal, just wait a little while -- there'll be more Abigail & Arthur soon.  
> As always, kudos and comments are appreciated!


	4. Arthur Attempts to Buy a Shawl

Arthur steps into the shop and knows he's a bit out of his league.

It's pretty, with all this light wood and these kind of pretty blue velvet curtains along the windows. A couple cushy chairs are set out, with a small table set out between them with a little tray for nibbles. Around the shop are wire ladies dressed up in fine ready-made clothes, all the sort of things he think Abigail would like. Light plaids, shirtwaists, walking skirts. He lingers by the door, uncertain if he should step in.

Mister Alighieri comes out from the back rooms. Sort of a quiet-looking man, maybe Italian, but his face perks up immediately at the sight of Arthur.

"Oh, hello!" He says, "How can I help you?"

"I'm, uh... looking for a shawl. The young lady up at the dry goods place recommended-"

"Oh, Joanna! What a dear! Yes, a shawl- for yourself, sir?"

"Uh, no -- why does everyone keep saying that?"

"You look like a man who might wear a shawl nicely," Alighieri says, pursing his lips into a smile.

"Naw, it's for my... wife."

Wife. It doesn't quite fit -- it certainly feels presumptuous, only a month after John died, but it's not like he's really taking over the role -- not about to uh, pay Abigail her "due benevolence" or anything -- but it was perhaps the simplest way to call Abigail to a stranger. Plus, if nothing else, it hides the gang. Just a country husband come into town for his wife.

"Oh, I see," Mister Alighieri says, a smile creasing his face. The man has dimples deep enough to put a finger in.

He comes behind Arthur and pushes him, gently, towards the seats. "Sit, sit. I'll bring something out, make some tea-"

"Uh, no, that's okay-"

"Please, I insist-"

"No, I couldn't-" Arthur turns, refusing to be pushed further.

"Please," Alighieri says, smiling.

Arthur sighs, looking around. He spots a tall counter with some stools in the back of the shop. "Listen- could I sit at that counter instead? I've been on a horse and I was working before I came into town. I'd hate to ruin your chair."

Mister Alighieri stares at him, but then shrugs. "Alright. But I'll still have some tea made, alright?"

Arthur laughs, a little off-kilter from the strange conversation, "Sure."

So Arthur perches on a stool at the wood counter, and Mister Alighieri disappears behind a curtain into the back of the the store.

Arthur leans his chin on his hand.

He can hear Alighieri talking to someone in the back of the shop, the quiet bustle of the town behind him.

It's funny, how in these moments of stillness, of waiting, he thinks of John.

He thinks of John, here, in this sun-lit room, with the sweet curtains and pale, varnished wood of this counter, entertains the thought of him pulling Abigail in, a wad of bills secreted away in his pocket just to let her buy whatever she might like -- that beautiful linen walking suit, a new hat, a pair of gloves. How Abigail would smirk at him, and then smile, really, and press a sweet kiss to John's mouth when they were outside.

It's hard without him.

Arthur had believed -- believed in John's dumb luck, his ability to survive damn well anything. But John would've come back if he was alive -- always had since he'd been in the gang, when he would run and return, with a new injury, three days later.

But it'd been... too long. And even Arthur, who had held out hope longer than even Abigail, was coming to the realization -- not even the realization, the knowledge, entrenched deep in his heart and mind -- that John Marston was dead.

So he can't- won't talk about John. He knows Abigail is barely keeping it together herself. If he brought him up, spoke as often as he thought about John -- their tears would be unending.

The quiet moments, the breaths in between activity -- they belong to John now.

"Are you okay?" A small girl behind the counter asks, brushing aside a piece of hair that had fallen into his face, "You're crying."

"Oh-" he startles away from the touch, wiping his cheeks, "Sorry. Yeah, I'm okay."

She watches him with some disagreement, but she doesn't push it any further. Instead she unloads a round tray, taking off a teapot and a cup, along with a jug of cream and a sugar bowl.

Carefully, she pours a cup for him, and gestures at the cream and sugar.

"Uh- cream, please," Arthur says, "Doesn't have to be too much."

She pours a splash of it into his tea and stirs it with a small wooden stick. Then she hands him the cup, which he drinks from.

"S'good." He says, not having really tasted it. Her stare's heavy. Distracting.

The girl is maybe -- 13, maybe 14. Possibly a very small 15. The older he gets the worse he gets at recognizing ages of young folks. She has dark, glossy hair cut into a blunt fringe, the rest tucked up in a simple bun. She's pinned a small ribbon bow on the bun, but it's about the only frivolousness about her outfit -- the rest is well-turned-out but almost severe for a girl of her age.

Satisfied with her tea-serving, she sits quietly on a stool in the back corner behind the counter and pulls a work basket up, lifting small scraps of off-cut fabric up and glancing constantly at him.

It's a glance he recognizes -- the artist's glance. He does it a lot with folks around camp, that quick flick of the eyes and nothing else, almost covert but entirely failing to be.

You freeze, when you know you're being watched like that. There's something subconscious about knowing you need to stay still to help someone, and it ruins the line of the gesture.

Only Hosea was good at holding a pose when he was asked, and he'd spun a tale of being an artist's model for a stint in his youth, one which Arthur barely believed. 

Bill was weirdly good at it too. His face would go dumb, blank, though, so it was always disturbing. Like Arthur'd put him in a coma by looking.

But she's not drawing, so he eyes her with some apprehension, and shrugs, sipping his tea without tasting it.

Mister Alighieri bustles back out of the shop, arms patently laden with shawls of every conceivable color and pattern. His cheerful tan face is nearly covered.

"I wasn't quite sure what you might want, sir, so I brought out right well our whole stock -- Would you like a look through?" Alighieri chimes, almost threatening to spill them onto the counter in his haste.

"Eventually, but not if you're going to throw them at me."

"Oh goodness!" He warbles, looking around feverishly when he seems to realize he's over-burdened, "Hanna-"

But the girl is already there with a small table to hold them all, and then back again at her perch where she now carefully sews together the scraps she's picked out from her work basket.

"Oh, thank you, dear," he chirps, smiling with those dimples again, "yes, let's put them down."

"My... wife said she wanted something in wool. Longish. Hip length."

"Oh my, well, that excludes our very lovely beaver shawls, a shame."

"Beaver?"

"Well, certainly! Here, have a touch of that, then-" And Alighieri picks up one, this black one with a fancy border and a fringe, and holds it out.

Arthur reaches out and likes the subtle way it shimmers, how soft it is- but he also knows it's out of his budget and the type of thing that, even if he haggled it down, it would still be more than the dollar and some he has left.

"Yeah, no, not beaver. Just wool."

"Not cashmere, either?"

He knows cashmere, and probably just like the beaver, too expensive. "No, just wool. Domestic, if you got it."

"A proud American! Why yes -- we do have some domestic types -- and you said hip length, ah?"

"The larger the better, I guess. The- missus has a new baby, so if she can cover him up this winter..." He gestures loosely, unable to end the thought.

"Oh! Yes, yes. Yes, so-- something large... and something woolen. Something domestic..." Mister Alighieri sorts through the various shawls, apparently selecting out the ones that aren't any of that, placing the cast-offs on the counter, closer and closer to the tea tray.

Arthur goes to move it, but the girl is already there, pushing it aside.

"Papa," she says, with a surprisingly gentle voice, "Careful of the tea."

Mister Alighieri startles and smiles at her when he sees that she's moved it.

"Thank you, Hanna," he chirps, and bundles some of the shawls up once more, announcing he'll be just right back, just has to return these otherwise he might never, haha-

This time Arthur really takes a drink of the tea. After it's cooled, and that girl isn't staring at him so pointedly, he might actually be able to taste it.

It's warm, and sweet. Sweet in a way he can't quite pin down, not sugary, not too much like honey... tart, almost. Like something Grimshaw would make on Christmases past.

He really... wants Abigail to have some.

Maybe that's something he can give to her, something to keep to herself for special occasions, when she needs the sweetness and the warmth.

Mister Alighieri returns, but Arthur misses his opportunity to ask about the tea when he starts laying out the more appropriate ones.

"What kind of complexion does your wife have, sir? Fair, dark, russet?"

"Oh-" Arthur stumbles. He'd never really gotten what they meant by that, always been confused at these apparently mono-chromatic ladies who were only ever identified by their hair colors. Around here, folks came in more interesting combinations that they apparently did in gay Paree. "I don't know, but I know what colors look good on her."

Alighieri smiles wide, like he's caught Arthur in some embarrassing position. "Hanna, could you help me lay these out for the gentleman?"

Hanna stares at Arthur for a moment, hands paused now drawing on the piecework thing she was making -- a doll of some sort -- but she doesn't get to accept or deny, because another woman appears at the doorway, her brow furrowed and her sleeves rolled up over her forearms.

"Sorry to interrupt. That man needs more medicine and we just ran out."

Alighieri looks back and forth between the woman and him, mouth agape and eyes fluttering with surprised blinking. "Oh, uh, dear- I'm with a customer?"

"You're really going to say that to me," the woman slings, "when you were the one who took him in."

"What's the matter, ma'am?" Arthur says, rising.

"We took in a stranger my husband found ill in the outskirts of town, and we've run out of ague pills. Someone has to go and pick some up."

Mister Alighieri and Hanna look from the woman and back, between each other. Neither one makes a move to go, and Mrs. Alighieri's brows slowly ticks downwards until she looks ready to yell at those two-

"I can go," Arthur says, lifting his cup, "But only if you tell me where you get this tea."

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Wahoo! A shorter intermediary chapter, one day early!  
> Next week, a longer one ft. more of Hanna, who ended up a favorite of mine. The week after will be more Arthur and Abigail + some much delayed Christmasing (I started writing the Christmas chapter(s) back before Christmas so that might give you an idea of what my schedule's been like).  
> After that, my production might slow down -- I'll be going into my final semester of college, and it's looking like a real busy one. Hopefully I'll be able to write something while my life gets crazy.  
> Look forward to hearing from you all again! Kudos and comments, as always, are appreciated.


	5. A Bad Man Who Does Good Things

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> CW: verbal and physical assault on minors, retributive violence, cursing, hand injuries, minor victim blaming, vague mentions of sex work

"I make that blend myself, sir. No one sells it."

Arthur hangs his head, pressing his hat into his chest. "I am sorry to hear that, ma'am. I was hoping to buy some for my wife. It's very good -- I thought she'd enjoy it for Christmas."

For the first time, the woman's brows lift.

"That's right, Lucetta, this man is here for his wife already -- don't we have some to spare?" Mister Alighieri warbles, setting sets of shawls out along the counter.

The woman stares up at him. Her eyes are remarkably dark, like riptides.

"Well, if you're offering to run an errand for us... I suppose I can let you have some." She concedes.

"I'll go with him," Hanna chirps. Now seeing the woman he assumes is her mother, the resemblance is clear -- the same deep riptide eyes. "He doesn't know where the druggist is."

The woman eyes her daughter sternly. "Fine. But if I find out you've flirted with him I'm taking away those novels my sister keeps sending you." And then she points a stern finger at him, "And you -- tell me if she does."

Arthur puts up his hands, and nods.

Hanna hops off her stool, packing a small purse with money her mother hands her and the doll she had been sewing, now finished, as Mister Alighieri starts to rearrange the shawls.

"I'll keep these out for your return, sir!" he sings, before his wife grabs him by the collar grumbling about _the least you can do for the man you picked up is wash him_ -

Hanna settles a coat and hat on her shoulders, stripping them off the wire ladies. They're barely the right size, slightly large on her young frame. Then, pertly, she raises her arm.

"Daring lil thing, ain't ya," he says, offering his arm, which she takes, pressing herself along his side.

"Says the man who was crying in a ladies' dress goods store."

Arthur's eyebrows nearly fly off his face.

Her voice is sharp, although it carries no particular heat. She smiles, overly-toothy, a bit like a fortune-teller the moment before they pull out some devastating secret about your life.

She says nothing more, and shutters back the wildness of her expression.

They walk together, out of the dress goods shop and onto the busy street.

"So your name is... Hanna, right?" Arthur asks.

"Annetta, but yes. And yours? I don't think I caught it." Those riptide eyes, bright but dull at the same time -- well, he takes a bit of a chance.

_Is stealing a dead man's name wrong?_

"John Marston," he says.

"No it isn't," she says, a terrible grin breaking out across her face.

Wrong choice. Her stare feels like it's dragging him down to the ocean floor, choking him under dark water. Like a gator, bored and yet deadly.

"How would you know?" He scoffs, but the tone's unconvincing even to him.

"I'm not telling you," she giggles, "But I'll call you it anyway. You have secrets to keep, and I'm not a snitch."

They walk in silence. For a weekday, it's not terribly busy -- but a lot of folks say hello to Hanna anyway. A couple people greet her, smiling, and her whole demeanor changes once again to that quiet, polite little thing.

When they notice him, with his hat slung low and his beard coming in thick, she giggles charmingly and says he's a friend of her father's. He nods to the people they meet.

"I would prefer to call you my fiance, but you know..." here she pauses, words lagging like they were hesitant, unsure, "I'd rather not have my books taken away. Not much very much excitement in this town."

"Saying things like that, someone's bound to get the wrong idea, miss."

"I'd rather be interesting and interested than pure and passive," She says, without breaking character of the quiet daughter, waving subtly to passersby even as her words are fiery and sharp, "Mamma likes to pretend she was such a good girl, but I know she wasn't."

Hanna's like a goddamn gale, the strength of her convictions like this. What made young folk about her age so certain? Himself, John -- they'd been firey like this, passionate and sharp, believing hard and compromising little.

"Well... maybe she just wants to spare you some hurt. Make sure you don't get hurt the same way she did."

"Suffering is unavoidable."

He hasn't a conversation like this in a long while... possibly ever. Just as he starts getting his footing, she says something like that and knocks him totally off-kilter.

They approach the druggist, kind of a modest place for what he was imagining, and she looks the vision of plain and modest when she raises her skirt just an inch to step up.

"You're a father?" She asks, but he can tell it's not really a question. She seems to know a lot about him. It's... unnerving.

"Yes, I- guess so."

"You guess so?"

"My wife -- my gal, she's raising a kid. But he's not my kid, or anything."

"My," she says, turning to him in the doorway. Even there she's not as tall as him. Even with the hat. "It always seems to me that men are uniquely obsessed with raising children only if they've made them as well."

"Suppose so," he says, taking off his hat as he enters behind her, "But the gal's my best friend. If I didn't help her, what kind of man would I be?"

Hanna laughs.

Behind the counter is a -- kid, he guesses, not really one gender or another, about Hanna's age. Their glance is surprisingly easy, and they greet Hanna with a quiet hello.

They chat -- lightly, but in that way kids do, all secret words and barbed laughter to the world around them.

Arthur looks around at the glass cases, the strange medicines available for sale. "Female pills" next to "consumption cures" -- and isn't consumption something you don't get better from, anyhow?

A man steps in behind Arthur.

The hair on the back of his neck stands. Something off. Something in his gut.

"Get outta here," the kid behind the counter hisses.

Arthur continues to study the pills. But he's not watching the pills anymore. He's watching the kids, the way Hanna's eyes go big and dull, all that razor wit draining along with the color in her face.

"What, I don't get a welcome, Sammy?"

"No, you don't, you rat-faced-" the kid hisses, their fists white-knuckled on the counter.

Kid's too slight for any of this. Hanna leans far away from the man, near backed into the corner of the counter, her jaw tight.

"C'mon, I'm just trying to talk to Annie here," the man drawls, stepping closer towards Hanna, who backs up even further. Her hat's getting crushed against a display case.

"She doesn't want to talk to you," Arthur warns, standing straight. He's a couple inches taller than the man and broad to go with it. The man -- hesitates. But he smiles, like they shared some _secret_ \-- like Arthur was supposed to understand. And turns back to Hanna.

"Annie, surely your papa can talk to me, huh? I'm an honest gentleman," the man drawls, a hint of an accent.

The kid juts out their arm in between Hanna and the man.

"Stop talking to her."

It's brave. Stupid, but brave.

The man smiles, sickening. It's a look he knows -- a look he's seen in torturers and madmen alike.

The moment the man grips the kid's arm, tight near enough he can watch the skin bruise, Arthur is on him.

Yanking him by the collar backwards, snarling, "What the _fuck_ do you think you're doing to a child?"

The man, who doesn't look like the sleazeball he is, chokes on the collar straining against his windpipe.

"What do you want me to do with him," Arthur snarls.

"I- Get him out," Hanna stutters, shaking like a leaf, "Get him out!"

Doesn't have to tell _him_  twice.

"You're lucky she didn't tell me to kill you," Arthur hisses, grabbing his shirtfront, a broad, crazy grin spreading along his face, "Because that poor kid woulda had to mop the place for days to get you out of the floorboards!"

The man tries to struggle, gripping at Arthur's wrists and arms, baring his teeth and cursing in a foreign language: " _Cazzo, stronzo, fottiti!_ "

But he's weak. His struggling and gripping and attempts at wrenching does nothing.

Arthur drags him, cussing but weeping too, out the front door, throwing him into the busy streets and planting a heavy boot on his well-clad chest.

"I hear you're hurting kids again and I will bring the wrath of God down upon you, you understand me?" He barks, drawing whatever attention he hadn't gained with the toss, "Hell, you even show your face in this town again and I'll break your fuckin' legs, got it?"

The man says nothing intelligent, just trembles, the harsh words becoming incoherent in weeping.

"Come on now, no crying! Where's that bravado you had, huh? Where's all the courage you get to corner a prepubescent girl, huh?"

The man reaches for -- something on his waist, but Arthur slams his foots down on his hand before he can reach anything. He feels a satisfying and disgusting crackle of bones breaking.

He leans down, real close to the man's face.

"I'm gonna step off of you in a second, and when I do, you better leave this town and never bother these folk again, okay? Unless you wanted another broken hand."

He steps off the man, grinding his heel into his hand one more time.

The coward stumbles up, running like a kicked dog, says nothing more. Just clutches his now shattered hand and runs.

Arthur eyes the crowd now watching him, and turns quickly, heading back into the druggist.

That kid is curled around Hanna like they could squeeze the hurt out of her. That single bow she was wearing is clasped in Hanna's hand and she cries into her friend's shoulder.

"You okay, Hanna?" He asks, quiet. His breathing's still hiked up from the fight.

Her friend looks up, clear blue eyes sparkling.

The kid runs over to him, gripping his wrist. Clear as day are the red, bruising marks on their wrist, but the look of thanks is clearer.

"Is he gone?"

"Gone for good if he's smart."

Fat tears leak from the kid's eyes. "Thank you," they sob, "Thank you -- Oh god, thank you."

"It's okay, kid," he murmurs, petting the kid's pale curls. "Your wrist okay? He didn't break it or anything?"

"No, no, I'm fine- thank you so much. Hanna," the kid turns, like there was suddenly nothing else to think about but her, and pulls her into their chest again. "Hanna, are you okay?"

She says nothing at first, meeting Arthur's eyes -- he recognizes that look, that deep shame, that same look he gave when Dutch and Hosea weren't angry he was robbing them, but impressed and even a little pitying -- and it's sad, when all that fear and vulnerability gets shuttered back behind bravado and sharpness.

"I'm fine," she bites.

Townsfolk start gathering at the door, trying to get a good look at him.

What is he, to them? A brute, he supposes, to them. A violent brute. No better than the man he just sent running, except perhaps worse. He's a bumpkin to them, that man at least looked like he came from money-

Lucetta Alighieri bursts through the door, her sleeves still rolled up and her apron still on, a coat barely thrown on her shoulders and blows past Arthur to Hanna.

She throws her arms around the kid and Hanna, fussing, "Hanna, Hanna, oh god, what did he do to you? Are you okay, you didn't agree to anything did you? I told you that bow was too much and you didn't listen-"

"Ma'am," Arthur says, stepping to her.

"I told you not to be flirtatious, and you went out and you were-"

"Ma'am," he says, firmer.

"And he'll come back and-"

"Ma'am," he says, finally, pressing his hand onto her shoulder.

She spins, like she expects him to be the man he scared off, ready to fight. But he's not, and she twitches down, out of that fury.

"He's not coming back," he says.

And then she's thrown her arms around him.

It's -- unusual. He's not used to some stranger holding him like this, face buried into his chest and arms squeezing tight. He doesn't think it's a proper embrace, though, so he doesn't return it, just pats Mrs. Alighieri's back gently.

She doesn't say anything when she parts from him, just breathes deeply, hand on her chest. And then she turns back to Hanna, thanking the kid who lets them go, tells them to get some ague pills for the ill stranger, and... the world is somehow put to rights again.

The crowd around the door ebbs out, a couple people lingering, but the kid ducks behind the counters, a little shaky but alright, and fetches the medicine they'd come in for. Hanna hands her mother the money from that purse she loaded earlier, and the transaction's quick and uncomplicated.

No one talks much, but he goes over and offers a hand to Hanna, who takes it and stands again.

"You're alright? You can walk?"

"Of course I can walk," she quips.

"I dunno, kiddo, your legs look shaky to me."

"I can walk-" she squeaks, but stutters, nearly falling but for Arthur's quick hand that supports her.

"Easy now, easy. No shame in being scared. I woulda thought you were crazy if you weren't, after all that." In a weird way, their pose is a parody of a waltz, but Arthur is no dancer, and Hanna straightens out soon enough. "How long has that guy been bothering you?"

She looks up at him, expression briefly despondent.

"A couple... months," she says, looking away from him, "He was offering to marry me but- I wouldn't. I didn't want to. I'm not ready, and I- there was something about him that felt... off."

And she looks over to the kid, who's carefully counting back change for Mrs. Alighieri.

"And... I don't want to leave just yet."

He nods, and gently takes the bow out of her hand.

"Can I?" he says, quiet, holding it up to her.

She stares at him. Her riptide eyes are clear in the morning light, and reveal the deep mahogany brown of her eyes for what they are.

She turns, slowly, exposing the smooth curve of her hair into the bun at the back of her neck.

"You can keep being a kid, I think," he says, as he pins it there, "My wife -- she didn't get to be a kid. She was... uh... married off, I guess, at your age."

Married off was a way to put what Abigail went through -- married off to a different man each night, not despising but not enjoying what she'd do.

"I was only a little older than you when-" When he what, when he robbed Hosea and Dutch? When he entered the world of crime? He'd been in it from the day he was born. "-Well, I didn't get to be a kid."

She turns to face him, and says nothing, just rests her hand on his arm.

"And it's-- it hasn't done us any favors. So you, you get to keep being a kid -- alright?"

She looks at him, and for the first time that day, he's looking at a person. Someone who sees him on the same level as her, as a weird kid, ill-fit with the world.

She reaches into her purse and pulls out the doll she put there earlier. And then she holds it out to him.

When he doesn't take it, she says, quietly, "As a thank you."

The doll is -- soft, made of different patterns and colors of calico scraps. It's shaped like a human, with little legs that flop along seams, and arms with the sleeves of the shirt rolled up. It has a little mop of yarn-hair too, falling in a gentle part, and a smiling face, carefully drawn on in ink. The little doll even has little tab ears and stubble. It's sweet in a way he can't describe, with firm limbs and a turn to the ink smile that makes him smile too.

"Thank you," he says, finally taking it and stroking the carefully made shirt with a little breast-pocket, "This is really nice."

She smiles. A simple smile. Not sharp or mean. Just -- pleased.

Lucetta gathers the both of them, Hanna says one last goodbye to the kid -- Sammy, he guesses -- and nods, briskly, as if to say "Be ready."

Despite the hubbub, their stroll back to the shop is uneventful. A few people talk, staring at them, and one person comes up to Mrs Alighieri to ask what happened, but it was hardly the mob or crowd he expected.

When they see him, and shrink away, Mrs Alighieri insists on his valor, his bravery, and their thankfulness above all. Hanna only confirms it.

It means a lot.

When they get back, they give him most of the tea, no questions asked, and Mister Alighieri gives him two shawls of his choice, as he hiccups his thanks and holds Hanna close into his chest. No charge.

He picks a simple black one with a nice brightly-colored floral border, and a wine-colored, pinkish-red one with a white star pattern all across it.

When they're done, and Mister Alighieri has thanked him enough, Hanna escorts him out. She watches him stow the paper-wrapped bundle of shawls on the back of Boadicea, rocking on her heels.

"You're a good man," she says, softly, no lead-in.

"I'm not a good man," he counters.

"You are a good man. No one else had been able to do anything about him -- least of all us." She comes up beside him, resting her little hand on his arm again. "You helped me without thinking about it. Encouraged me. Do you know no one's done that?"

No one told me that it was okay to be a kid. My Mamma -- she thought maybe if I dressed like an adult, dressed modest, nothing silly or fun... maybe he wouldn't come back. And Papa... Papa was too scared to do anything. Needed to keep the shop going. But you -- you did that."

He slings his hat low on his face.

But even trying to hide his face, she's so small she can still see all of his expression. The only thing the hat does is make this moment more private.

"I'm a bad man," he says, the words breaking on their way out.

She smiles, a little -- not toothy, not devastating, just soft, just kind, in a way. "Then can you be a bad man who does good things?"

"I... suppose so," he says, barely a whisper.

"I'll be a kid if you do that," she says, swaying back and forth on her heels, "Say hi to your wife for me, John Marston."

He tips his hat, mounts Boadicea, and heads home, waving the whole way out.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> One last chapter before I move back to school, later today (it's 1:30am,). I have some of the Christmas chapter done but I would say less than half. We'll uh... we'll see how it shakes out, y'all. See you soon, hopefully.  
> Let me know if you liked or didn't like the Stranger chapters -- I liked them as these beats of characterization and intrigue that felt like the game, but I understand folks might be here for that sweet sweet Arthur&Abigail content. There are some really nice plot-bunnies I have planned for later chapters, though, including some mushy nonsense.  
> Also, depending on how certain classes go, these chapters may start being illustrated as well! Look forward to it.  
> As always, kudos and comments are appreciated


	6. And To You A Wassail Too

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> CW: Christmas, nightmares, children caring for sick parents, mentions of alcoholism, trauma

Couple days pass.

As soon as Arthur got back from town, he dropped off the supplies, and hurriedly stowed the packages -- the shawls, the tea, and the little doll -- in his tent.

Abigail asked where the shawl was and he played dumb -- "Oh, a shawl, shoot, I knew I forgot something."

But none of them quite believed that he only picked up supplies there. Not one. No, he'd taken quite a while, there in that town -- Miss Grimshaw said nothing when he returned in the afternoon, with the dollar and some he'd never got to spend, just stared at him evenly until she shrugged and turned away, taking the money from his outstretched hand.

Abigail's been staring at him ever since, with this kind of squinty grimace she used to give John when he was being a fool.

Arthur would gladly be a fool if it made her happy.

Folks are getting ready for Christmas. It's one of the first and only where they've been settled, no craziness -- for some reason they always had to move around Christmastime, didn't Pinkertons take vacations, couldn't they give them this mercy, this ceasefire?

But this time, it's quiet. They have proper shelter for once. They even have a working cooking range -- "And an _oven!_ " -- much to Pearson's delight. Everyone's well, and though it's tight with supplies and money, it's nothing they haven't weathered before. So everyone's in the spirit of celebrating.

Dutch had decided, back in the beginning of the month, not to do Sinterklaasavond with Jack. He's young enough still that he doesn't even have shoes to put out for the presents and candy, and Dutch went sad-eyed when Abigail reminded him as much. Now he's getting everyone in the mood for regular Christmas with an intensity that seems misplaced.

Javier, who's speaking better and better English each day, keeps working on something for Christmas Eve, smiling an overly-toothy grin and giving no answer every time Arthur comes by and asks what he's working on. It looks like a star, maybe, made out of papier mache. Remains to be seen what it is.

They get to teach Javier their Christmas carols, but it's funny how no one overlaps quite perfectly with one another -- Grimshaw might only know a couple of Arthur's songs, for instance, and no one knows Dutch's except Hosea. Or, well, Orville actually knows some of them -- Dutch's carols are all slow church hymns, these pensive reverent tunes, but it fits with his voice, this bassy, pulled-close sound.

Arthur's favorite tune is "Here We Come A'Wassailing." It's the only song he'll reliably sing at the campfire, joyfully barking out the verses with a smile along his face. He knows it by heart. His ma would come back singing it after socials with the neighborhood, and it was always the sound of joy to him in December.

He thought about doing a Mari Lwyd with everyone, but he's not sure where to get a horse skull pre-bleached these days, and isn't so sure his spontaneous poetry skills are up to snuff anymore for it.

...His father and him used to do Mari Lwyd.

Lyle would unwrap the horse skull they'd brought from Wales, the one carefully painted over with woad -- "from your grandda's grandda," -- and they would dress her together in a lacy sheet and silken ribbons. Lyle would carry her, and Arthur'd put on silly face-paint, and they'd go out around back of the house so they could call out to his ma, who'd come down all smiling and warm and pink-cheeked from cooking Christmas stew.

Da would start in on the tricky song, all in Welsh, and Ma would answer back, that flit-flittering, flit-flittering of their mother-tongue bumping along Arthur's ribs. They were both good at it, at this thing that was and wasn't flirting, at a song both known and new. Ma was too clever for Da, though, and Mari Lwyd almost never got to cause havoc, but they did all get Christmas stew.

He thinks he smells it, sometimes, in camp. Wafting up from Pearson's stew-pot, the hearty smell of _cawl_ with fresh beef, with those sweet spring leeks they managed to grow in a bed of soil on the back porch.

But it never is. It's just... Pearson's stew. Made with whatever they manage to buy or nab or forage. Still good, but not nostalgic in the same way.

Some snow fell the twenty-third. Not a whole lot, an inch or two, but enough that Abigail got everyone into one massive snowball fight. She trickily launched a snowball at Javier's back -- then Javier tossed one at her, but she ducked and the snowball splattered across Pearson's balding pate. He retaliated, and soon enough everyone was in, ducking out of the way of snowballs and flinging their own back.

Javier had whapped Dutch right in the nose with one, and they feared death would come early for them. But Dutch just laughed and smushed a pile of snow into Hosea's face, and Hosea barked a laugh and slapped a pile of snow right back into Dutch's exposed neck.

He and Abigail continue to sleep beside each other. He's delighted when Abby doesn't know some of his Christmas tunes, loving that he gets to teach her.

On the twenty-third, he bounces with baby Jack and merrily sings "Love and joy come to you, and to you a Wassail too!" as Abigail laughs and chases him in a silly dance. Jack gurgles and giggles appropriately. They all fall giggling into a hug by the fire, and it's almost- sort of- normal.

It's still easy to sleep beside Abigail. She curls into him like she means it, like he's easy to love. Like it's been years and not days that they've been like this, together and warm.

That night, when all is quiet and still, when the light of the moon catches the falling, quiet snow and lights the bedroom bright, Arthur has a nightmare. Not a bad one, not the ones where he wakes up screaming -- when he wakes up into a scream and no one says anything to him about it in the morning even though it felt like he was screaming his head off -- but just something that feels wrong.

It was his ma dying again.

It's that prickling, tamped-down anxiety he felt, how her sickroom warped smaller and smaller, twisting until the bunches of flowers on the wallpaper turned into tears, lachrymose hallucinations of a boy watching his mother die while his father- while his father was off drinking to delude himself that she _wasn't sick, she isn't sick, Artie, she can't be sick or-_

It's all the anxiety of finding Lyle Morgan, the man who held the West coast in paralyzing fear, feverishly dyeing their clothes black in the copper hipbath they kept around, getting dye just about everywhere -- on the floorboards, on the carpet, on himself. The anxiety of knowing, of seeing it coming, that they would never be the same again afterwards, how Lyle drank more, was more violent, more aggressive, sloppier -- the way he would clutch at Arthur in those scant few hours when he wasn't drunk or hung over and weep into his little blackened shirt that _God's taken her from me too soon-_

He wakes from that, crying, gasping for breath and trembling.

"Arthur?" Abigail mumbles from his shoulder, coaxing him back to reality, to now, to twenty-two years later, with his best friend and a baby in the bed with him.

He doesn't have words. He has no words, just this sadness, this loneliness that he's never been able to shake in winter, this bone-deep fear when someone gets a fever, the sickening, swallowed-broken-glass feeling of being so so young and yet having to care for his mother who was dying -- of hearing her rattling breath and feeling her face get hotter and hotter without abatement and being able to do nothing because -- because he was just a kid, he was ten years old for christssake, and Lyle was out drinking to delude himself that she was fine.

Abigail presses a warm hand to his cheek, smoothing away the tears and the sweat.

"Did you have a nightmare?" She mumbles, her voice sleepy-rough, eyes barely open. She combs his hair away from his sweaty forehead with the same gentle hand she uses on Jack.

He says nothing. Can't say a thing.

Little Jackie starts to whimper on his chest, woken up by the seismic shift of Arthur's breathing. Abigail slides him over, onto her own chest, hushing the babe.  
And it's strange -- how her not paying attention to him makes him feel _better_ , how her humming is powerful, how the easy way she twines their hands grounds him and brings him back to now, to here. He watches her coo at Jack, watches her shift up against the pillows, pet his hair. She checks him gently and decides, yes, he's hungry.

She runs her thumb along the ridge of his, and he finds his breathing lining up with it, slowing real easy. It's easy. Abby feeds Jack and holds his hand and that loneliness -- the loneliness of him in his tent, against the chill and the malaise that follows him around in this season -- abates.

And it's easy too to fall back into their sleepy routine, to take Jack from her once he's fed and nuzzle against him, patting his back until he's done, changing Jack's diaper and laying him back down on his chest.

Abigail curls back into him, but she doesn't let go of his hand. Just keeps holding it.

She watches him, though. Her blue eyes watching him from his shoulder, like she's- waiting for him to speak, to say something.

"What?" He says, quietly.

"Did you have a nightmare?" She asks, soft.

He hesitates. Wants to say no -- but Abby knows him too well for that. "Yeah."

"What about?" She asks, rubbing his thumb again.

"...I-" he pauses, the words caught in his throat.

"You don't have to tell me," she murmurs, "But I know I always- told John, when things were... bad. And he'd hold my hand like this. So I thought I could help."

Arthur swallows. "It's- my ma. My mother. I have dreams about -- when she died, sometimes."

She nods. She doesn't comment, just nods.

He finds he doesn't have words to speak about her. All these words he's never said to anyone, that lingering sentimentality of picking her favorite flowers when he sees them, the feeling like the stars had fallen from the sky the day she died, how his da foisted over every penny they had so that she'd be buried right and well --

Abigail yawns.

"Oh," she giggles, nervously, "I'm not- bored, or anything-"

He laughs, "Nah, I-"

He pauses again, a lump in his throat.

"I don't think I can talk about it," he finishes, "Not now."

She stares at him. In the pale light of the snow, her blue eyes are almost silvery.

"Okay," she whispers. She doesn't press.

"Good night, Abigail," he murmurs, kissing her forehead gently.

"Good night, Arthur."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> We're getting into the heavy stuff now. There's a lot to talk about with Arthur's past and his relationship to family. We'll get to it. Oh, we will GET to it.  
> Updates will probably come a lot less frequently with my return to school -- I'll try my best to do it on Sundays like this, but no guarantee on which Sunday. Things are getting busy.  
> As always, kudos and comments are appreciated!


	7. "To the Gang!"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> CW: hunting, mentions of sex trafficking

In the morning, they wake up to the scent of cinnamon throughout the house.

Cinnamon, and bacon.

Arthur departs once more from Abigail's room and is greeted by Hosea, smiling broadly in his winter coat and handing Arthur his rifle.

"We're catching Christmas dinner!" Hosea says, in lieu of a greeting.

"Now?" He asks, squinting.

"Yes," Hosea says, "After breakfast."

Hosea shepherds him down to the kitchen with a certain unrepentant glee- and Arthur is pretty certain, then, that Dutch had definitely gotten up to something yesterday, if Hosea was this gleeful.

Hosea loved Christmas, of course. He was somber around the start of winter, but Christmastime always cheered him, a silly smile coming to his face at the first snowfall, the eagerness of picking presents, of Christmastime oranges bought from hothouses, the scent of pine boughs and cinnamon that wafted through the air.

It infected them all, it really did. None of them were in a better mood than when Hosea was delightedly stringing holly everywhere, joyously snipping pine limbs to decorate the entrances to their tents. His joy made Dutch happy, which made Orville happy, which made Abigail happy -- so on and so forth.

But this was a special kind of joy -- something vaguely pink-cheeked that assures Arthur that Hosea has one or two hickies adorning his skin somewhere Arthur can't -- and would rather not -- see.

Grimshaw and Hosea chat like old biddies -- which he supposes they are, really -- as Arthur scarfs down a bowl of oatmeal. They talk about Dutch, and the goings-on of Javier -- how he's adjusting to America and English and all that. They talk about everyone, really -- he knows they talk about him too, when he's not there. Not insincerely or meanly, necessarily, but just sort of like mothers chatting about their children.

Pearson's there too, whistling a tune as he cuts miles and miles of root vegetables.

"What's on the menu?" Arthur asks him, between spoonfuls.

"Turkey, if you two can catch 'em, stuffed and roasted -- we have an oven, a real oven, for once! -- all these potatoes and turnips and carrots, some vegetables from the cans we have, cheese, fresh bread, butter, soup, er..." Pearson counts along his fingers, "And some mince pies. I'll leave it to you two to pick the meat."

"You'll be needing hands?"

"For sure!" Pearson laughs, flicking one long spiraling peel away from the potato in his hand. "You offering?"

"Oh, not him," Grimshaw interjects, a smile splitting her face, "Arthur's busy tonight."

The three of them turn and look at him. His face flushes.

"Shut up, Grimshaw," he curses, slamming his hat low on his face and doggedly chowing on the oatmeal.

"Don't be rude, now," Hosea scolds, and turns back to Grimshaw with a smile, "What's he doing, Susan?"

"You said you weren't a snitch, Miss Grimshaw." Arthur points his spoon at her.

"Mister Morgan here is playing Santa Claus for young Jack tonight."

"Is that why you went into town!" Pearson laughs.

"Yes," he grumbles. Even from under his hat, he can see the way Hosea beams -- even Miss Grimshaw really isn't making fun of him, as much as he'd want to believe it. Hosea looks blisteringly _proud_ though, in that way he got sometimes looking at Arthur or John, this crinkle-eyed look that felt like the sun.

The good thing about how Hosea and Grimshaw talk is that they never linger over-long on any topic, so soon Arthur is forgotten, in favor of chatting about Bill and how the poor dear seems lonely.

When he's done, Arthur stands and slings his rifle onto his shoulder, setting his bowl in the washing-sink and letting it soak. Hosea bids a quick goodbye to the two cooks when he notices, and says they'll return soon.

Day's bright and clear, just about as nice as you'd want a Christmas Eve to be: cold but not bitingly so, not the way that crackles in your lungs and freezes your snot. No clouds in the sky.

They're not too far from a decent wood, so the two of them ride out together. Hosea floats topics over to him, nothing heavy, nothing crazy. Things like -- weather, and Christmastimes past, and- and just normal things.

Until-

"What are you and Abigail doing?"

He doesn't say it- rudely, or anything. No stress anywhere particular, no admonishment -- but still, a weird question.

"What do you mean?" Arthur asks.

"Well, I found you this morning coming from her room, didn't I?"

"Sure."

"So there's presumably a reason."

Arthur sighs. Hosea, gentle as he was, was stubborn as hell and could tell a lie from a mile away. A liar catches liars, you know.

"I offered to keep Jack warm at night. Nothing weird about it."

Hosea shrugs. "No, nothing weird- just-- be careful."

"What's that supposed to mean," Arthur frowns.

"Well- I just don't want you two to..." Hosea pauses, going quiet.

"Don't want us to what?"

Hosea sighs, gesturing with his free hand, "Well -- you two loved John. So much. And the fact that you're getting closer because of it-"

"Hosea, we're the same distance we've always been," he scoffs.

"No, but you'll get closer. Raising a child with someone brings them intimately closer to you, Arthur. Believe you me, I know. I've raised a whole cavalcade of children -- you included. And I'm worried that you two are doing this to just- lick your wounds. I won't stop you -- you're a grown man now, you can do that, but I-"

Hosea sighs. The two of them lapse into silence, the only sound the breath of the horses and the tread of hooves through freshly fallen snow.

"But you what, Hosea," Arthur finally manages to say, his chest tight and his grip on the reins tightening.

For a few long moments, Hosea says nothing. And then he slows down, until the two of them are stopped, side by side.

Hosea looks at him. If Arthur wasn't feeling -- on guard, like he needs to shield his front -- he would relish the look, that look only Hosea has for him, the look of a _father_ but the look, too, of an equal.

"If the two of you find that -- your closeness is just convenience, and you end up alienated from each other -- I worry what that would do to the two of you. Helping raise a baby is one thing -- we're all doing it -- but it sounds to me like you're slowly taking John's place. And raising a child takes a lot out of you."

He sighs, "And I would hate it if the two of you lost that what you have."

They stare at each other, for a long moment. The moment stretches almost over-long, the snow around them dampening all sounds except for the tentative call of some far-off bird.

And the Hosea breathes deeply, and starts off again. "I'm not telling you to stop," he says, "but I want you to be careful. You're both still healing -- trying to make something like this out of that pain never goes well. Trust me."

Arthur starts off too. He wants to be mad, or rebellious, but he's too old for that -- knows too well that Hosea speaks from experience, that year he spent after his wife died, alongside his wife's partner, how they took turns drinking and being sober so at least one of them was functional.

Or at least, he thinks, anyway. Hosea told a lot of half-truths and a lot of boldfaced lies. It would hardly be crazy if that one had been a lie.

Still, Hosea speaks true. He thinks about that too, late at night. When he's still awake, even after Abigail crashes into sleep. Was this them just -- trying to make some semblance of sense from all this? Was this them just... forgetting about John by pretending he was never there?

If something did go wrong, and he was facing this world without Abigail- if she started to hate him, or resent him -- what would it do to him? How would it change him?

Hosea slows again, his horse slowing to a walk. "I don't mean to depress you, or anything," he says, his eyes fixed forward as they start stepping through brush, "But you know that."

"Sure," Arthur says, slowing too, ducking his head when the tree branches come low.

The two of them lapse into silence.

Normally he would try to fill the silence, keep talking -- especially with Hosea, who likes to talk -- but there aren't words, and there are more thoughts beside.

Thoughts about the gap, the void left behind by John. Thoughts about a world where Abigail hated him, or where Abigail acted more like Mary had, not hateful but scornful instead. Thoughts about how love and intimacy and closeness were all so complex and fragile.

They don't talk, even when Hosea hands him a rifle and the two of them take simultaneous shots to take down some turkey hens, they don't talk as he tracks a deer and takes it down. They don't talk as Arthur hefts it to the river to chill its blood, keep it fresher.

But it is funny. The light snow, the chill, how warm Arthur is despite the cold, the exertion of carrying that buck -- It's light somehow. It's uplifting. The work, the light spring of sweat that forms on his forehead, it's kind of cleansing. Hosea smiles too, helping him lash the deer to his saddle silently, watching the sky like he's looking for birds, or an interesting cloud.

It's when they mount to return to camp that Hosea breaks the silence.

"I'm glad you're playing Santa for Jack," he says, smiling.

"Yeah?" Arthur laughs, "You're glad?"

"Sure. I think we all need a little cheer, Abigail especially. Plus you know how much I love Christmas."

"Sure," he laughs.

"What did you get them?"

"I got Abigail her shawls -- and some tea. I didn't think I'd find anything for Jack but... I was given a doll. Cute thing."

"How'd you manage to get a doll?"

"Someone was making one and she gave it to me when I left."

Hosea grins at him. It's a look that says _Tell me._

And Arthur -- slowly -- unfurls the story. Of going to the dress goods store and Mister Alighieri's bird-like nature, of Hanna and Lucetta and their riptide eyes, of helping them out -- of Hanna and that duality of fearless young woman and scared girl. The look of the man he scared out of town.

"Sounds like you ran into a Bronte," Hosea says.

Bronte. Yeah, he knows that name. He knows that name intimately.

It was a Bronte, or maybe _the_  Bronte, who had put those girls into those hotel rooms, back over a year ago. It was a Bronte, or maybe _the_  Bronte who had terrorized Abigail enough that when he found her she was stuck mute, cowering from him in a closet and hucking an ewer at him before he finally managed to calm her down and give her his coat.

Good to know he's moved into soliciting young women.

"So you just... helped them?" Hosea laughs.

"I don't like seeing kids hurt, Hosea."

"I know, I know, neither do I, but-- that's the most _you_ story you've ever told. You come in to do something nice for your friend and you end up saving a young woman from a mob member!"

Arthur laughs too, and the two of them laugh together. "You know what, you're right."

"Of course I am, I raised you!"

They're still giggling when they come into camp, ribbing each other. Javier's there, paste smeared across his face like his grin.

"Hey, _primo_ , _la Señora_ wants to see you."

"Alright, bud," Arthur says, dismounting, "Help me get this deer down to the kitchens first."

And then it's a whirlwind -- The steam and smoke and scent of the kitchen whirls around them as they bring down the big doe. He feels a twinge of sickness cutting up the doe, something that feels like retching, but he can't linger on it because Pearson's now hurriedly taking the bits Arthur's trimmed and is stripping them into meat and bones, the latter of which which throws in a big stock pot.

Then Grimshaw,  _la Señora,_  when he sees her -- Grimshaw pulls out this red coat and these ruddy pants and has made a hat for Santa in the time it took them to hunt, and she smiles when she bundles him in all of it. She pats his chest approvingly, laughing the whole while.

And then, freshly redressed, Dutch steals him away to some distant corner of the camp to help him put together the present the camp had bought for Abigail -- a crib, with high sides and one that lets down, and a mattress. They spend an hour or two just hammering nails into the legs until finally it's perfect, and Dutch is satisfied. Hosea congratulates them but then insists Arthur show him the doll.

So the doll is shown to Hosea and Hosea guffaws like a fool, lord knows why --

And then Pearson is calling them all down to _take_ something  _to the table, please, you ingrates_! And Grimshaw is wiping her floured hands on her forehead and leaving a darling smear there.

And then they are finally around a table, with their tin plates serving as their fine china, and there are the two turkeys, and plum pudding, and hand pies with venison, and all those nice root vegetables. For once, it's a proper Christmas feast.

Orville, undrunk, leads them in Grace. Arthur looks across the table at Abigail, who head is bent and who holds Jack on her lap instead of holding Dutch's hand.

He smiles, a little.

"I want to propose a toast," Dutch smiles, after Grace, raising a glass of wine in the air, "To the Christmastime season. To our successes, to our additions to the gang, to the people we hold dear to us."

Hosea raises his cup as well. "To the gang!" He laughs.

"To the gang!" they all cheer.

Everything, for once, is good.

Jack breastfeeds as Abigail eats, as Dutch veritably tries to stuff her with food, insisting she eat. Javier only doubles this effort, the two of them pressing close to her on each side, and she finds herself laughing hard and whapping at their grinning faces. When Arthur silently slides a plate full of the hand pies over to her, grinning, like a punchline, the whole side of the table erupts into laughter.

Grimshaw is wearing her nicest stole, smiling and smiling. She always likes to play the host at these things, making sure every person has enough of a drink, that the water and the drinks are flowing freely and taken liberally, frequently getting up from her chair to a chorus of _sit down_ and _it's fine_.

Still, no one complains when she comes to the table with her dessert, that steaming apple-pear dessert he thinks of fondly. The dessert that the Alighieri's tea tastes like. When she beams at them, at the delighted silence that falls on them as they all eat, it seems just... alright.

Once they've tucked away enough food, and Pearson and Hosea bundle the rest of the food down so they can have a cold feast tomorrow, along with that roast venison from the doe, Javier leads everyone else out into the snow, where he's hung his papier-mache creation from a tree and smiles broadly.

"You hit it. It breaks," he says, grin broad, "Things come out."

Dutch nominates Arthur to hit it. "Get a stick in our boy's hands and it'll get smashed," he laughs.

The thing that Javier doesn't tell them is that he needs to be blindfolded.

He does give them a limited history -- normally this would be part of a long celebration, each night someone would host a meal that all the local children would come to, asking for a night of rest at each "inn". But they can only do this one night, Javier says.

But then he ties one of his cottony ties around Arthur's eyes and spins him around, and it's pretty hard to swing and the crowd of them is cheering and jeering at him until finally Javier calls, "Three swings! You're done!"

Abigail's laughing, watching everyone get blindfolded and have their swings, Javier calling out "You're done!" like a carnival barker. Davey swings wildly, hitting the ground more than he hits. Javier is pulling on the rope to get the star to jump, the crepe paper streamers bouncing.

Javier is ruthless with his job. Mac maybe gets one good swing in. When Hosea returns, he gets a decent crack, swinging the stick like a baseball player.

Dutch finally gets up after some goading, insisting -- _insisting_  -- that he would be no good aim, that they would all laugh at him.

The first swing and Dutch Van der Linde, all six feet, five inches of Dutch Van der Linde, blindfolded and dizzy, leaps into the air and smashes that papier mache star to the ground to the sound of uproarious applause.

There's candy inside -- little penny things wrapped up in wax paper. When Javier had the time to buy it, Arthur doesn't know, but it's sweet in a certain way. Most folk run for the candy -- Arthur hangs back with Abigail (who shouts at Davey to get her some too), eyeing Dutch with the kind of reservation you save for wild animals you're fairly sure aren't gonna kill you, but haven't tested the theory with yet.

Pearson builds them a fire, out by a copse of trees, and they all gather as he makes eggnog for them all and slices up the rest of the plum pudding they couldn't finish for dinner. Each person eats a slice with their hands, and a daring few (including Abigail and Susan) dip their pudding in the nog and try to convince everyone else to their hedonistic ways.

The night whiles away. People talk and sing and laugh. Javier tells stories of Christmas in Mexico. Dave, Mac, and Jenny all burble happily about Christmases in Ireland. Hosea regales them with a tale of high-society Christmas balls, the halls of mansions decked out entirely in holly and pine, the swaying skirts -- the type with bustles! -- and the cheery checked waistcoats.

After a while, Jack starts getting fussy.

Arthur hears it so sharp these days. Before, he could hear Jack speaking, but now, he _feels_  it. Wants to and needs to turn to Abigail and offer to walk Jack till he falls back asleep.

Abigail's got it though. She gets up, bids everyone a goodnight, kisses every person around the fire -- leaving just about everyone a little mushy -- and finally goes back inside.

He wants to go with her. Whispers as much to her when she bends to press a kiss to his cheek, but then appends -- well, Santa comes around midnight, doesn't he?

She laughs at him, and goes inside, singing softly to Jack: " _Love and joy come to you, and to you a wassail too..._ "

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yes indeed, things are getting crazier for me. I've got like, three separate thesis projects and I'm dying. But I think every two weeks is a decent pace. Santa comes next update (hooray!) and then we'll skip in time to February, when things are tense.  
> In other news, one of the three thesis projects is based on this! I'll be publishing the first five chapters of this story with 16 full-page black-and-white illustrations by April. If you want to come and talk, and especially if you're interested in a copy, come say hello over on Tumblr @emby-m-rl. And if you're curious about what my art looks like, you can see my work on my Instagram @emby.m or at my website embym.com.  
> Thanks for all the love so far, y'all. It means a lot.  
> As always, kudos and comments are appreciated!


	8. I Thought Christmas Would Be-

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> CW: alcohol; nightmares, blood, grief after the break

It takes a little while for the party to roll down. Everyone's so festive and bright and everyone's laughing and getting drunker by the minute. Pearson's telling Navy stories, Orville's slowly brining himself in nog, and Jenny's now dancing by the fire by her lonesome.

In the morning, they'll give presents. It won't be much -- but he knows, for example, that Javier has a guitar waiting for him.

Dutch, he thinks, has already gotten a present from Hosea. There are... ink marks, peeking out from Hosea's collar and cuffs. Little words that show. Poetry. Arthur tries not to think too deeply on it.

For now, though? He taps Grimshaw, who hands off her cup to Pearson, and they say goodnight. They go amidst jokes of them two canoodling, but Susan just laughs and says "Mister Morgan is not my type."

When they're inside, she helps him dress. Red shirt, ruddy pants. The garments don't match, but are fine. A red coat. ("It was Dutch's at one point," she says, and he is unsurprised.) On top, she settles a small stole, all white fur, tickling his cheeks. Then, of course, the hat, to which she's added a small jingle bell.

"I'll take it apart again when you're done with it," she says, "Don't have much use for Santy Claus outside yuletide."

She laughs one final time, patting his chest. "I can't quite believe you'd do this. Can't think of how many times I had to drag you to even celebrate with us, seeing as how much you hate winter."

"I know," he says, rolling out his shoulders, "But... you know, Abby needs some cheer."

Grimshaw looks -- perplexed, for a moment. Like she woke up and the leaves on the trees were just a little different than they should be. But she smiles after a moment and says, "Sure."

She bids him a good night, before heading back outside to the raucous cries of a collection of idiots.

He breathes in slowly.

It's the first moment of the day he's been alone. The first moment of the day that everything slows down.

The rest of the day had been fun, of course, relaxed and loose, but very fast.

He goes to his tent, one of a couple raised up in the drawing room, and takes the gifts. Carefully, he sets each in his bag -- the two shawls, the tea, and the doll Hanna had given him.

He still likes the doll. Finds it charming. He strokes the little shirt pocket once more.

He closes the bag and stands, a little nervous, even.

It's silly, now. He's a hardened outlaw, and he's nervous about a lady and a baby not liking his Christmas presents.

The halls are quiet, the wood creaking under his boots.

He hopes -- simultaneously -- that she's asleep, and that she isn't. He presses his ear up along the door to her room, hoping to hear nothing, hoping to hear something -

Jack's speaking, short clipped fragments of speech.

She's laughing, replying to his meaningless babbles -- but the sound of her laughter is hollow.

He...

He knocks. And Abigail's breathy laughter goes silent.

"Yes?"

He peeks in.

"Can I come in?" he says, shifting the bag away from the crack in the door.

"Sure," she says, cocking one eyebrow.

When she sees him, she startles into a laugh. What a sight he must be, all red and white, fur pulled up to his nose.

He, meanwhile, finds that Yuletide has left him vulnerable.

She's in her wrapper and her shift, her hair braided carefully along her neck. Even though this should be silly and playful, he -

Finds instead his insides go mushy, that he just wants to sit beside her and watch her chat with Jack. Wants to give her presents as Arthur Morgan, no silly hat or stole.

Jack reaches for him, tottering and wiggling in his mama's arms. He comes up alongside the bed, to the two of them.

"What are you doing," she grins.

"I'm delivering presents," he replies, pressing a little kiss to her temple.

She giggles and reaches up to brush some of the fur away from his cheek, stroking up through his beard. He feels like a cat, content to be pet. "This is adorable," she says, a smile creasing her face.

He shrugs, touching their foreheads together as he leans down, "I thought it would cheer you up."

She gestures him down and presses her own kiss to his cheek.

For a moment, he basks in the warmth of it.

But then he pulls his brows down low. "Can I get to being Santa, now?" he says, feigning annoyance.

"Be my guest," she says, lifting Jack a little higher. He's watching Arthur with big, interested eyes.

He does a silly little jig, delighted at the laughter he hears behind him.

"You have to be asleep," he fake-whispers, over his shoulder, cupping his hand behind his mouth as though anyone was in the house to hear or anyone was sober enough to pay attention if they were.

"Oh," she says, rolling her eyes, "Sorry."

She settles lower in the bed, murmuring to Jack that he has to pretend to sleep -- which he doesn't do, just wriggling in her arms.

"Is that good enough, Santy Claus? Jack's being silly," she says, cooing, "aren't you, Jackie?"

"It's fine," Arthur says.

She closes her eyes, or at least she closes one. Probably keeping the other open to see his silliness. He's willing to work with it.

He does more of that little jig, taking his time to carefully look about their (their? when had it become theirs?) small room -- the desk she'd pulled up beside the bed, with the picture of John set down and the pretty seashell with all her hair pins in it. The little fireplace, with its broken but strangely precious screen, one with big flowers painted on its old, cheap brass surface.

He keeps going about, onto his side of the bed (and doesn't linger on the fact that he has a side), inspecting the loose pillows (who have seen better days, but were enlivened by Annabelle's careful embroidery long ago, a remnant Dutch was too inconsolable to see again.)

Then, he pretends to notice Jack, who wobbles his stumpy arms. So he leans down, so so close to him, close enough that Jack reaches up for his beard and tries to grab hold, and Arthur says to him sternly, "My boy, you have stumbled upon a great secret."

Apparently it's too much for Abigail. She bursts into laughter, pulling Jackie into her chest and guffawing, rolling about in the bed.

Her laughter's infectious.

It starts as giggles, little tittering things as she laughs and laughs -- she sits up, and laughs at him, plucking off his hat -- he chases her down for it, laughing too -- he pulls off the stole and flings it somewhere to the floor off the bed as he grabs around her waist and around Jackie, who stares at them gummily, and then, as their laughter fades, she settles her head against his shoulder and sighs, a bright, warm sound.

"You're so silly," she says, and it's the best compliment anyone's ever paid him.

"How long were you planning this?" she asks, dipping her hand into his hair -- just tracing how his hair grows at his nape.

He hums, loving the feeling of her hand settling there, "A couple days. But earlier, too, since John-"

His voice catches again. They're okay today. He doesn't need to break it.

If he talks about it, they'll break. They'll fall apart. They can't talk about him.

He feels it in the way her fingers still.

"...The gang asked me to. For Jack," he finishes. Lamely.

They're silent for a moment.

Abigail's hand find his nape again, scratching lightly.

"Tell me about a Christmas of yours?" she says, humming when Jack chirrups quietly, wiggling his arms again.

"Of mine?"

"Yeah... something here. Or back home. Wherever," she says, patting Jack's little shoulder, "Don't you want to hear Arthur's story, peanut?"

Jack doesn't say much, but he takes it as a yes.

"Um... okay," Arthur says, resting his chin on Abigail's shoulder, staring at that seashell and the picture of John. "Uh... I was eight."

She nods against his shoulder.

"It was... a Christmas where... my da was there," he explains, "And he was sober. It wasn't all that intentional -- we both wished it was, but we knew better than to pretend it was anything permanent. Um, but he was sober. And we were happy about that.

"My mum -- she used to always make _cawl_ \-- stew, with fresh beef, since we lived out there in beef country. And Da... I remember that time, we were both sitting drooling on the settee, and Lyle took a deep, deep breath, and then he turned to me and said -- _Artie, that's the smell of happiness_."

Abigail chuckles. "That's sweet."

"We did Mari Lwyd -- it was just us that year, the other Welsh folks moved out earlier that year... D'you know about Mari Lwyd?

"No," she says.

"You dress up a horse skull and have it go around form door to door demanding treats."

She laughs, pulling away from him and leveling a look at him. "You're pulling my leg!"

"Doing no such thing. C'mon back here," he says, patting his shoulder again, "I'm liking how you're playing with my hair."

"Needy," she smiles, rolling her eyes. But she returns anyway.

"So, we would do Mari Lwyd -- we used the skull Da had brought from Wales, it was painted all pretty in these swirling patterns like this --" he reaches a hand out to Jack, who opens his eyes at the new touch, Arthur's blunt fingertip tracing the kind of thin, piled-on spiral he remembers, even twenty-odd years later. "My great-great-grandda did it. And the name of the horse it came from was secret -- Lyle was supposed to tell me when he passed the skull to me but... I don't have the name or the skull, so."

Abigail giggles when he presses his finger onto Jack's little buttony nose, settling the hand on her thigh.

"But we would dress up -- Da would put Mari up on his head and drape himself in a sheet, and we would pin ribbons and bows and silk flowers onto her, and I would get all dressed up in facepaint and my Sunday best, and then we'd go out around the back of the house and call for ma. And she would come down -- she'd always be flushed from cooking, she always flushed real easy, Da used to say she was his darling little hollyhock."

Abigail giggles again, resting a matching hand on his thigh.

"And that year, Da was flirtier than he'd ever been with Mari -- maybe because it was just me and him. Not nasty, just flirtier -- Mari said she had a thousand kisses from a handsome gentleman if Ma would let her inside, and Ma retorted -- what handsome gentleman? better not be my husband. Da nearly broke character."

She giggles. "Sounds like something I would say."

"Yes, indeed, ma'am," he chuckles. "But Ma let us inside -- and forbade Mari from causing havoc, she always remembered--"

"Wait, hold on," Abigail says, turning her face towards him, her lips perilously close to his neck, "Cause havoc?"

He laughs, "Yeah. If you let Mari Lwyd in but don't tell her to be polite, she gets to ruin your house."

"That is so ridiculous!" she giggles, pressing her face into his shoulder to stifle the giggles.

"Don't make fun of Mari Lwyd," Arthur says, no heat under it at all, "She's a sweet equine angel, who occasionally will break your pottery if you don't give her cheese."

"That's-" she giggles, "Silly."

There is a moment, where she sits back and looks down at Jack, and she smiles.

And something is very right.

If you asked, Arthur couldn't explain it. He wouldn't have words to say it all.

His hands -- he doesn't know why -- move to her face, gently cupping it. Jack has dozed off, despite their laughter, against the curve of Abigail's stomach. When Arthur touches her, she looks back up to him.

Quietly, slowly -- he kisses her. On her cheeks, on her nose, on her forehead. A couple on her chin that make her laugh, softly.

He isn't sure why he does it. But he does do it. And when he does, and when he gets her to smile, it feels... good.

She reaches up for him, one hand cupping the curve of his face, and she presses one kiss to the corner of his mouth.

It steals his breath away.

And then-

"Time for presents?" he murmurs.

The trance between them is broken. She laughs, "Sure."

She sets Jack against the pillows, draping a little bit of the blankets over him. He's fast asleep now, but still, she includes him.

Arthur reaches into his bag and pulls out the paper-wrapped shawls.

"Oh?" She says, pulling the brown paper off.

He hadn't really noticed in the hubbub, but the Alighieris had wrapped them nicely -- pretty tissue paper in nice colors with lengths of satin ribbons.

"Oh," she says, untying the packages and gasping. "I thought you'd forgot!"

"Naw," he says, reaching a hand to pat Jack's little head, "I thought they'd make a good present."

"These are -- lovely," she says, standing from the bed and draping the black one around her shoulders, spinning with it, "Does it look nice?"

"Of course it does," he says, smiling.

"Don't flatter me, does it look nice?"

"Of course it does," he says again, the grin widening.

She huffs, and sits back down, throwing her arms around him. "Thank you," she says.

"Who said that was your only present?" He grins, patting her back.

"What?" She leans back, "How much money did you spend?"

He shrugs. "It's a secret."

She doesn't have to know he didn't spend anything.

She humphs, but can't hide the little smile on her face. He reaches into the bag again and produces the little tin of tea.

She eyes it, turning it this way and that. It's pretty, with a lacquer painted over the tin in pretty patterns. The paper label on it reads something in Italian.

She pulls the lid off, exposing the loose leaves.

"Tea?"

"Mmhm," Arthur says.

"We have tea," she says, "I bought it last time."

"Smell it," he says, a grin breaking on his face.

So she does. She brings the tin to her nose and takes a quick whiff-

And then a smile breaks her face too.

"It smells like Grimshaw's apple crumble," she says, smelling it again, "That's amazing -- how did you-?"

"A woman in town made it. I asked her for some."

"That- it even has the smell of the nuts she puts in there!"

"I know," he says, leaning on his hand, resting his head on his shoulder. "I figured -- we all share everything, obviously, and I'm happy to do it, but -- sometimes you need something that's just yours."

She smiles. He likes the way she wiggles the smile, her nose twitching like a bunny rabbit's, likes the way her full lips get smooshed and stretched. It's a little coy-looking, a little mischievous.

She pulls out the drawer on the little side table, and then presents him with something of her own.

"It's not much," she says, "But I wanted to make it for you."

It's a scarf.

Abigail, to her credit, is an amazing knitter. He's never seen anyone else do the sorts of things she manages to do with yarn and a couple needles.

It's a dark gray -- no, not dark. Deep. It's a deep gray, blue-greenish, almost like the ocean on a cloudy day. There is a careful series of knits and purls running along its surface -- when he runs his fingers over it's like listening to a waltz -- knit knit, purl, knit knit, purl. And the ends are finished with fringe, carefully tied into sections.

"Oh wow," he murmurs, and it takes a moment to even remember what to do with scarves -- until she takes it out of his hands and wraps it around his neck.

"There," she says. Her voice is soft.

He wants to stay in this moment. Wants to trap it in some jar so that he can look at it forever, feel this again. Like fireflies in June.

"Thank you," he says, "It's lovely."

Then he reaches into his bag one more time. She furrows her brows -- "Another one?" she says -- and then she's silent when he brings out the doll.

"Oh my god," she says.

"It's for Jack," he replies, handing it to her.

And just like everyone else he's shown it to -- she's laughing.

"Why- what's so funny about this little guy?" He says, taking it back from her and playing at protecting the little thing. "He's sweet."

"He is sweet," she laughs, "But Arthur, he looks like you!"

...?

He holds it back from himself.

"Naw, he's too cute to be me," he says, but the closer he looks -

Oh, the closer he looks, that's... exactly what it is.

That yarn is the same tawny color of his own. The boots and pants and shirt -- were all what he was wearing that day. Even the eyes, drawn on -- Hanna used blue ink for them.

Hanna had made a little cloth portrait of him.

"Oh my god," he says.

"How on earth did you manage to pick out a doll that looks like you and not realize it?" She laughs, taking it from him again, playing with the little shirt pocket, just like he had.

"I don't -- I didn't pick it out-"

"How did you manage to stumble across the one doll in the country that looks just like you?"

"Someone made it for me -- oh my god, she might just be a genius if she made that so quickly-"

She just laughs, and laughs, and laughs.

 

* * *

 

In the morning, they give out the other presents around the sitting room -- Javier is so thankful when Hosea presents him with a guitar, Abigail nearly cries at the lovely crib, and Arthur -- well, Dutch has always encouraged his artistic growth, so Arthur gets a set of artist's pencils with a fine gray-rubber eraser.

It's a slow day. No one's working, no one's planning anything, Dutch has pulled out the Victrola and is dancing with Hosea in the dining room.

At some point Arthur and Abigail end up on the settee together, her reading, him dozing off.

He'd had nightmares again, although not the same nightmare.

Last night's nightmare was about John.

John, silhouetted in that sunset, the moment just before he went and died where Arthur had looked at him and known. John, smiling towards the north, his hair haloed by the red sun, saying something dumb about life they could have had -- should have had. A life of peace and warmth and love.

And then --

John's head blew open. Not fast. Not like a headshot. But like you took a tin can and crumpled it, head wound bleeding and bleeding and bleeding. John just kept talking -- peace and contentment, a homestead, John and Abigail and Arthur and that baby -- and blood.

Arthur woke from it sweating and trembling. Carefully got up before the crack of dawn, laid Jack beside his momma, grabbed a swig of whiskey from Orville's supply and tried to scrub out the feeling of blood as John had crumbled and fell into his arms.

He's exhausted now. Susan teases him about having too much fun with Miss Roberts last night, but sees his expression and offers to make some coffee. He takes her up on it.

It does nothing though, and he's fast approaching sleep on Abby's shoulder.

She reads, quietly, until she looks up. He can feel it against his ear, how she looks up, dithers.

"I thought-" she says, without preface, "Christmas would be-"

And she says nothing more.

He hums from her shoulder. "Different?"

She is silent, gathering breath but then letting it out like it was all just pointless.

"There's something missing," she finally says. She seems to know what it is.

He knows.

He knows.

It's why John had appeared last night. This Christmas -- this life -- was always meant to have him in it.

"How..." she says, so soft, so heart-rendingly broken, "How do you think he died?"

The question settles on them.

He almost answers -- almost tells her I think he fell from a cliff, nearly tells her about the dream, the oozing blood --

But she just... laughs, uneasy. Says, "Sorry! just... ignore me."

She puts her book down, folding it over her hand. "Ignore me..."

He closes his eyes and pretends, for her pride, to be asleep.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Awright! This chapter's the one I've been trying to write since mid December! I had like, seven or eight drafts!   
> I hope those of yall who have been here the whole ride are liking this. And to those of you who are new, or heard about this through my posting up on tumblr, welcome.   
> Progress on the book version of this is going smoothly (!). It'll be the first five chapters, 86 pages long, and lovingly illustrated. If you're interested in a copy, let me know in the comments or over on tumblr at @emby-m-rl! The book should be ready by late March.  
> Next chapter will be up in two weeks. It's a short epistolary interlude (it's a letter!) and thankfully already written.   
> Kudos and comments are always appreciated!


	9. A Letter

_January 26th, 1896._

_John,_

_I see now why you loved Arthur._

_When you said to me, that first night we had sex, that you'd never been with a woman before, but you had been with a man -- I wondered. I wondered what kind of fella would catch your eye, what kind of fella would make you wear that hang-dog grin you did._

_Arthur is a good man._

_He would never believe it. But he is a good man._

_He offered to keep Jack warm for me. That was simple enough -- Arthur's steady as a mountain when he sleeps, and warm, and trusted._

_You know he and I are close. Of course we are. If it had been an other man that night in the hotel room I would have tried to kill him, but Arthur unwound my anxieties like a skein of yarn. There was no one in the world who could've done that but the man who called me "sparrow". And Bronte- Bronte couldn't touch me there if he was with me._

_But even past that, I find myself looking forward to seeing him at the end of a day. I look forward to singing to Jack together. Arthur's voice is special, so different from yours. He doesn't quite have the sense of rhythm you did._

_Jack -- oh, Jack is growing so fast. He's reaching for things, and he's almost smiling. His eyes follow things and he is so big now -- he fits neatly onto Arthur's chest._

_I wish you could be here to see him. I wish you could be here._

_I keep wishing that I would wake up, and see you on Arthur's other side. To have you there would be bliss. I smile every time I think of you in your undershirt, holding newborn Jack like he was a treasure. I know you thought of him as one. I know too how much fatherhood scared you, how shaky and uneven you felt with him._

_If I had driven you to death -- please forgive me. If you had run that night, if you had run and ended up dead because I was too much or something, please... forgive me. I miss you much more than I could ever be angry. I spend every day trying not to cry. A month isn't long, but our life... it doesn't let us mourn. I'm doing my best to live each day **normal.**_

_I don't think it's working._

_Arthur keeps waking up from nightmares. I keep trying to ask him what he's dreaming about but he never manages to tell me -- I think he might be dreaming about you, dear, just like I am._

_Neither of us -- neither of us talk about you. I can't -- I can't talk about you with him. I see the way his jaw tightens even thinking about you, those nightmares. I can't do it to him. I won't._

_It is so hard._

_I miss you. My companion. My love._

_Whereever you are... I hope you're okay._

_I love you._

_Yours,_

_Abigail Marston._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> :,|  
> A reminder, and an update: if you're interested in an illustrated, physical copy of the first five chapters, please send an email to emagnan97@gmail.com! And please tell me if you're in the US or elsewhere, as this will definitely affect shipping costs!  
> Kudos and comments are always appreciated.


	10. He Was Like John

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> CW: swearing, nightmares, arguments, crying

It gets to be February pretty quick.

Fuck February.

He means it. February is the bastard child of the year, the month where you've been frozen over for too long, when the sky is gray and black, when there seems no end in sight for winter.

And the whole time, he's had nightmares.

Doing this -- this thing with Abigail where he plays at her bedmate -- it's not hard, not really. He loves Jack, smiles every time the babe screws his face up into a smile -- a real smile, now -- every day; he loves Abigail, the resolute, sure way she is, the quiet way she sings at night -- he wants to love them. He wants to protect them.

But every night is filled with these images of Lyle made crazy from loss, and every night his patience is shortened just a little more.

He's never recovered from that winter twenty-two years ago, and he's never felt it as sharp as he does now.

And John-

They keep not talking about John.

They hiccup around him when they talk, alter their words or even stop dead sometimes in the middle of sentences to avoid saying anything about him. Even with their interesting lives, even with all the things that happen to them, there wasn't enough to not bump up against him, to outline his contour with their conversations.

He was so much of their lives -- Arthur's especially. More than a decade. Every memory he has has John somewhere nearby -- the more the thinks about it the more he realizes he could tell you where John was in every memory he's had from those ten years.

Abigail retreats into knitting. Arthur smokes more. The words they can't speak collect in their throats and choke them. There's a tension when they hand Jack off to one another.

And the nightmares --

They get stranger. Beatrice warps and shifts, turning funny colors, turning into a doe once or twice. The room turns from her sick room to the room where Abigail gave birth, and again back to the inside of a tent. Lyle appears, doesn't appear, frets by the doorway, is already driven mad, turns into a wolf at one point.

One time, Lyle becomes John. Beatrice becomes Abigail. And him? He turns into Jack, tiny and afraid.

The night he has that one he just gets clear out of the room and goes for a smoke outside. Nearly vomits. Breathes in slow until he stops shaking, watches the moon in his shirtsleeves, nearly freezing.

He starts thinking maybe he should rescind his offer to keep Jack warm. He keeps waking the poor babe up, which keeps both of them up so long -- especially where Jack's just gonna get hungry an hour later and wake them again-

And of course he wants to help, but if he keeps waking them like this, addled for the rest of the day -- then he's no use at all.

He really is thrown off by all of it. That lack of sleep -- the fear, the fitful fear --

It's little wonder he gets injured.

It isn't serious. Not really. He falls on his ankle wrong on a job and sprains it, enough that he can't put weight on it. Sprains it bad enough that he can't mount his horse the usual way -- has to get on from the other side. Boadicea notices the difference, frets.

Hosea admonishes him the whole way back -- _can't believe you're fool enough to not mind your feet, Arthur_  -- but worse is Abigail when he gets back.

He sees the fear in her eyes. When they'd stayed out over-long, when he came back lagging behind because his ankle was hurting like a motherfucker in the stirrup, that breathless moment when she saw him and he saw the shine of her eyes, the way she gripped Jack over-tight in his little sling on her front. The way she turned quickly when they locked eyes, her mouth flattening into a line.

She doesn't say anything, but she looks _disappointed._

He can feel it in the way she wraps the injury, as Orville's de-facto assistant, the bitter way she sweeps a loose piece of hair behind her ear, chewing on her lips like it might give them both answers.

She offers the bed. He tries to decline, but she won't let him. For one night, she sleeps beside Jenny, Jack once more tucked into the bassinet.

That night she isn't beside him is _worse._

He's gotten through these nightmares -- this season, every year, without fail. He took a lot of night shifts, slept quickly to avoid his mind's meandering too close, and yet -- it never worked.

But this year, it had been a relief, even when Jack would cry, even when Abigail's mouth would frown until it broke into an accepting laugh -- when she would skim her hand through his hair and ask him, "Will you talk about it tonight?"

Even if he didn't, the offer was nice.

He spends that day staring out on the world with a harsh stare, foot up on a low stool, hands folded over his stomach.

Convalescing is awful. But worse would be if he tried at all to work on that ankle -- Hosea and Grimshaw would be on him faster than lightning. Javier was a snitch, too, and so was Bill -- Dutch would honestly just laugh and pick him up like he was a sack of corn (even now) and throw him onto one of these plush chairs. So there's no choice but to sit.

Abigail returns to her room the next night.

They don't speak, not very much.

Jack's been fitful, he's got some kind of stomach something that Orville was a little too drunk to properly diagnose, but it seems all is normal other than some tummy pain and some disturbed sleep.

 _Join the club, kid,_ Arthur thinks, chastising himself for the tone he takes in his thoughts.

He heard Abigail talking low to Orville -- _should I switch him off breastfeeding? Would arrowroot be better?_

But Orville had just laid down on top of a table and moaned _I don't know._

She still breastfeeds tonight, so either she decided on her own or Orville sobered enough to actually consult with her.

Jack cries what feels like constantly. He's been whimpering the whole time he's breastfed, and Abigail keeps encouraging him to attach again. He will, but Arthur guesses his stomach hurts enough that he won't take much milk at any given time, so it's awful slow going. The two of them are so exhausted and he knows it isn't helping to have Arthur in the bed, have her be extra vigilant in the night to not injure his ankle any further.

And truth be told, no matter how much her presence helps the nightmares, he can't help but feel surly every time Jack wakes up, every time he wakes up from a nightmare and she just keeps asking-

Every time Jack wakes them up, it's like a grater being dragged down his back, it's a real deep-seated rage that he worried will boil over and he'll do something stupid, or worse, something he can't take back.

For once he'd rather just sleep in his tent.

"Abby?" he says, when she pulls her shift back up.

"Yeah," she says, her voice rubbed raw. If a voice could be threadbare, that was it.

Abigail drapes the whimpering Jack over Arthur's belly and something riles in him -- do you mind, did you ask, this ain't my baby-

It won't help and he knows it.

Abigail and him, separately, have mouths on 'em. Known for their spitfire wit, their uncaring and unbridled honesty, their bluntness.

He tries to temper it back for her. He really does. Knows she tempers it back for him too -- she knows he isn't stupid, doesn't treat him like he's a fool. He can't assume malice in her, not after everything that they've gone through.

So what he means to say is, "I need some space, I'm not doing well and I feel like I'm burdened by Jack and burdening you with my need to heal -- I'm going to go to my tent."

What he actually says is, "I'm getting fuckin' sick and tired of this."

Abigail looks down at him. Her eyes are sharp.

Threadbare was a good way to describe her voice. That glare, though, that was a rope that just snapped.

"Yeah, I bet you are," she snipes, "Least you get to rest during the day, owing to your idiocy."

"Not by choice," he throws back, sitting up. The movement disturbs Jack, and he starts bawling once more.

"Oh, good job!" She groans, "I just got him quiet."

"Jesus Christ," he murmurs, picking Jack up and tucking him into his arms, "I didn't ask for this shit."

"I didn't ask for you either," she growls, taking Jack once more and standing with him, "Last I recall you offered to take up my bed -- and Lord, are you."

"What's that supposed to mean," he bites back.

"You take up the bed! If it was just me, I could stretch out!" She snaps, bouncing Jack. The wailing only gets louder with Abigail's roughness.

"Yeah, alright, like you don't cling to me every night-"

"And you keep waking all of us with your nightmares-" She spits.

"I don't control 'em! If you don't like 'em, roll over, go back to sleep and stop pestering me-"

"Pestering you? Pestering you! I'm trying to help!"

"Yeah, just like you always try to help -- you're always sticking your nose place it don't have to be-"

"A place I don't belong - Bullshit-"

"I'm not even his father!" Arthur shouts, voice too loud, too loud for the space.

"Yeah, well, John's _fucking dead_ , so-"

Abigail realizes a moment too late what she says. She freezes, in that screaming posture, Jack wailing in her arms. "So-"

Arthur's gut twists. Something red-hot and shameful wells in him, bites at his nape, and he's going to scream at her, he's going to say something he regrets- He's begging himself just to shut up and not push away the one good thing he has going just because his mother's ghost was haunting him- Just because John's ghost was haunting him-

And whatever he was going to say...

Comes out as a sob.

Abigail -- Abigail looks shocked, her mouth open on whatever she was about to say, but then her face crumples like a piece of paper in a rainstorm, and she starts to cry too.

"Abby," he barely manages to say, hobbling out of bed, hating the way pain shoots up his leg when he puts too much pressure on the ankle. His voice trips wildly over letters and syllables -- "I can't- I can't do this, I can't keep it inside like this, not anymore."

She just cries. The three of them, they cry. Long and loud, like babies, the three of them. Her sobs are nothing like before, when the realization of John's death was new, not when she was trying so hard to pretend she was fine.

"We have to- talk about John," she says, pushing him back towards the bed until he's sitting again. She still holds Jack, who cries and cries and cries, but she leans over him, their foreheads bumping together.

Tears settle into his beard, and he wraps arms around her waist, burying his face into her soft shoulder. It's so foreign, to cry like this, to cry with someone else.

When was the last time he cried like this?

Maybe never. He hadn't cried when Mary had said goodbye for the last time. He hadn't cried when he found Eliza and Isaac dead. He hadn't cried when Dutch returned dead-eyed with Annie's little body. He hadn't even cried, he thinks, when his ma died, during her funeral. He was just too tired.

He cries now.

He cries for himself, and for Abigail, and for Jack. For all the memories they held within their chests about John, everything that had been so much worse pretending it wasn't there. Every little smirk John would smirk, the way he touched them like they were the best things in the world. He cries because they couldn't ever stop talking about him, not the way he had been with them, this moon-eyed fool who loved so big and so strong-

And he finds...

And he finds, despite everything... he's _relieved_.

He's relieved to cry like this. It feels -- sticky, and uncomfortable, and he's sure he looks ugly as hell, but that deep anger, that rage that felt like claws raking his spine -- it turns light, in an instant, like steam. Steam that condenses down into tears, running and running and running until it's all used up.

 

He stays, in her bed, after all. But they settle up against the headboard, light a lantern, and decide to tell each other about the John they never knew.

Jack, exhausted from crying, rests along the curve of Abigail's stomach, hand gripped into her shift.

They swap sensory details -- the scent of flowers John picked for Abby, for his memory of cold river water the time he'd taken John along fishing and ended up wrestling with him instead; the whisper of her corset lacing and the over-reverent way he'd unlaced it that first time, for the way John had whimpered the mood was dead now that they'd been caught by Dutch. And yet somehow, they find so much of it is the same between them -- the way John would smooth his hands through their hair, the way he'd end up nuzzling his nose into the crook of their shoulders if they weren't careful, how he could never stop from smiling when he kissed them.

Abigail tells her about how John held little Jack the day after he was born, the squeezed-tight, almost-weeping expression. How he'd seemed at once blindly happy and terrified.

Arthur tells her about Lyle. About Beatrice.

"I keep dreaming about them," he says, "I was always dreaming about them. Cept Christmas. That was John."

She skims a hand along his bearded jaw, the crackle of it loud in the still room.

"I loved my mother so much. She was consistent when my father wasn't. And to watch her dying -- to watch her pneumonia get worse, hear her rattling cough and see her faint because she coughed too hard... it was terrifying. I was ten years old and had to deal with a problem meant for a man.

"And Lyle - he was... pretending it all wasn't happening. And the worst of it all was that I never could hate my father -- especially not the man he was when he wasn't drinking, the man who was just Lyle, not Lyle Morgan, terror of the West. Just-Lyle was a man with a big heart and a silly humor who loved my ma and loved me, too, 'cept fatherhood scared him. He was..."

She finishes for him, "He was like John."

"He was like John," he murmurs. "That's... that's why I was always yellin' at him to clean up his act. I couldn't have you turn out like my mother. I couldn't watch Jack turn into me. I'm not a good man. That kind of upbringing -- it doesn't let you leave."

Abigail is quiet.

And then she smiles a little.

"Somehow I'm not worried."

She looks down at Jack. Worries his little fringe with her thumb.

"I don't want him to do the things you do, obviously," she says, "But if he grew up to have your big heart... maybe it would be alright."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> We're back in the swing of things! I have some more scenes planned out (y'all should see how I work, it's a mess...) and a lot more bonding moments.  
> Arthur is going to start to feel differently towards Abigail soon (or maybe he never does feel _differently_ but just _notices_ what's always been there.)  
> Just a reminder that the illustrated copies of the first five chapters should be ready by the end of April -- for more information, contact me at emagnan97@gmail.com. I've finished all the illustrations!!  
> Kudos and comments are always appreciated!


	11. Cataloging The Last Couple Months

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> cw: swearing, childbirth, grief

Jack's still sick, and Arthur's still injured, so they become a match pair, sitting out on one of the couches in the house.

Abigail and him tell everyone about their setup -- the sleeping beside each other. It's inevitable, and seems silly to hide it anyway. Fewer people were teasing them about it -- in fact, fewer people were saying anything at all, most just sort of looked at him with a "yeah, and?" kind of expression.

He supposes it's good. He doesn't have to shoot anyone. But there's something that lodges under his ribs that feels odd about it. The way that Bill looks from Abby to him to Jack with one eyebrow cocked and just kind of says, "Uh, _yeah_." The way Davey and Mac and Jenny just all smile at each other before Jenny goes back to swinging between her two nearly-brothers.

But Arthur and Jack take to sitting around. For about a week, he just sits and reads to Jack. He reads real quiet so no one comes in and starts critiquing his performance. After about a day, he starts doing funny voices, keeps the habit the first time it makes Jack laugh. Most of the time, though, Jack's so tired from his illness that he's conked out along the warm curve of Arthur's chest.

In the week, Arthur doesn't manage to get through the books in the house -- there's a lot of them, actually, Arthur figures this was a big family home or else a boarding house, what with its size -- but he does get tired of reading. Gets tired of being inside. The books all feel the same in his hands. He wants to go _do_ something.

But the issue is of course that if he tries to _do_ anything, Grimshaw will just shoot him a look and -- would you look at that -- he'll be back inside on the couch. Or Javier will tackle him to the ground and make him stay there to rest his ankle.

But he figures he can do some things.

"Hey Abby," he says one morning when Jack's finally getting better. She's looking a lot less harried these days because of it. "How do you put on that sling thing you wear?"

Abigail grins from ear to ear, but helps him sling Jack along his chest, wrapping him in a soft blanket and one of his funny re-purposed flannel gowns.

"If you keep him tucked into your coat," she says, helping him get it on over the sling, "he'll be nice and warm." She pats the bundle fondly and offers her shoulder to help ferry him outside. "Call me if he starts getting hungry."

He spends the day drawing. Cataloging the last couple months. He'd ignored his journal -- everything had been too raw and fresh to write about. His embargo on John, he realizes, had extended even to writing. It was no way to live, really.

Abigail catches his eye.

She seems in a better mood. Jack's return to health, their return to talking about John, anything could've been why. But Arthur finds he doesn't want to chase the why. He's just kind of glad she's doing well.

He thumbs through his journal, reading the entries from the last few months --

November --

"John is nervous as all hell. I love the man, but he needs several drinks before he can even look at his wife. Abigail looks like she's shoved the moon up her shirt, but she seems fine. She's wearing my shirts these days -- nothing of hers fits anymore and I'm a big enough fellow. Orville is drunk (what's new?) and we're all eyeing Abby nervously every time she goes to take a chore. Susan's glad to have the help, but she's also the one the most worried."

A drawing of a very pregnant Abigail, hands on her hips, too-big shirt belted high above the swell of her belly.

"John keeps kissing me. I tell him to give those kisses to his wife. He says his wife would give me kisses too, if I wanted them. Abby wouldn't, of course; It's just his nerves getting to him."

 _It's not nerves,_ he thinks, _Abby really would._

Then later --

"Abigail went into labor. Orville was out but thankfully sober. I ran to get him. Susan minded her while I rode. Can hear Abby screaming from out here. Javier's with me looking pale, Dutch and Hosea are outside still working but looking nervous. Everyone's nervy.

"When I got back with Orville, John looked about ready to pass out himself. I can hear him murmuring nice things to Abby but she's screaming at him like I've never heard. It's the most creative strings of nonsense cursing I've heard -- 'You lard-bucket, ash-tray motherfucker! You moon-faced raccoon with arms!' It's almost funny, but I think poor Javier might start crying if I laugh."

A drawing of Javier, in profile, looking a little green.

Then a page --

"Baby's born. Little Jack Marston. He's really John junior, but I offered up Jack. They liked it."

"I'm overwhelmed. Something happened when I saw that baby. When I saw that kid in John's arms, saw the way John was beaming, that broad smile, I think I nearly cried. Felt for all the world I wanted to hold the two of them. I don't know why. Pride, maybe, hope."

 _Wasn't that_ , Arthur thinks, _Wasn't only that, anyway._

"Little Jack held my finger. I had forgotten (or maybe never knew) how small babies' hands are. It barely wrapped around my finger. It's drastic, but some part of me immediately said 'I would die for this kid.' Hopefully he doesn't turn out like any of us."

December-

"John's antsy. I tell him he's doing fine, but he doesn't listen to me. Abigail tells him he's doing fine, but he doesn't listen to her either. I don't think he'll listen to any of us. But he's excited to be a father, keeps creeping past me at night to go and see Abigail (who's still exhausted, a week out, but healing) and cuddle with her. He always comes back smelling a bit like talc and it's almost precious."

And then-

"John's missing. Abby doesn't know where he is. He disappeared in the middle of the night. No fight, not a lot gone. Couple days ago I told her he just took a long walk, cleared his head, like he used to... it's been a bit long."

And then-

"Abby cried into Grimshaw's skirts when we went to track down John."

And then-

"John Marston's luck might finally have run out."

And then-

"John's dead."

And then a drawing, spread across two pages. It didn't mean anything, for once. Arthur just traced the edge of his thoughts; Hosea had once showed him a book about stars, showed him a print of a "supernova" -- this unfurling, cosmic flower, an explosion that happened so big and so slow it looked like nothing here on Earth.

That was what he drew, that day.

Nothing else in the journal past that.

So Arthur puts pencil to paper, patting little Jack intermittently when he coos. Writes about grief, writes about anger, writes about fear. But writes about hope, too. The simple, easy hope he has looking at Abigail.

He draws, too, draws the gang -- draws what he remembers of Javier's pinata, draws Mac on his ass after slipping on ice in January. Christmas, the New Years' when a stupendously-drunk Orville lit off a flare in "honor of the holiday!" and they spent several very tense days waiting for law enforcement or local populace to come snooping around.

He draws when Dutch got ill in January -- physically or mentally, he wasn't sure, they tied into each other -- and for a brief while Hosea was leading instead. He has this image stored in his head -- he saw them, late at night, in the quiet lamplight: Dutch slumped against Hosea's stomach, Hosea holding his shoulders and looking out steadily on the camp. The next morning he'd asked what was wrong and Hosea had simply said "it's been ten years."

He wonders, like he wondered then, where he put the journal from back then. Where he put that journal from ten years back -- the day Annie, darling Annabelle, died, the day some of the light went out of Dutch, and then the entry from a couple months later when they saved John from being lynched.

If it was anywhere, actually, it was with Dutch, lost among the man's own journals.

Arthur draws another image -- one of those late nights when he slipped out of the bed into the chill of midnight and found Dutch out there, wrapped in his dark coat, a singular shadow along an all-white landscape -- snow had just fallen and Dutch was whistling "Darling Clementine."

Dutch was doing better now, marginally, but Arthur draws the way Hosea and him stand today, watching over the work with Hosea's hand stroking long paths down Dutch's back. There's still something off, and fragile, about him. Arthur can definitely understand.

Winter was awful for all of them.

It had this feeling of misery weighing on it. There were no new plants to draw, no new animals -- except maybe a few with new winter pelts. People looked pale and sullen, people _were_ pale and sullen, and most of all, they'd all lost someone in winter. Lost someone they couldn't've imagined their lives without.

He looks over to Abigail, who chats with Pearson, taking a taste of the stew. She laughs with him -- she's saying something about _you know I ain't got the most distinguished palate_ but she's offering _maybe a hint of rosemary?_

He sketches her.

It's not the first time he's drawn her, obviously, but the way he draws her -- after having felt her next to him every night for... what, three months now? It's simple, and easy.

She comes over just about as the sketch's finished -- he adds some final shading, closes the journal hastily.

"Lunchtime," she sing-songs, settling the plates of food on the little table Davey'd dragged out here for Arthur earlier.

"Thank you," he says, shucking his coat and untying the sling from his shoulder. She comes over too, her hands dancing around his to help. "Quit it, it's not like my arm's broken too-"

"I'm just helping!" She laughs, standing back and letting him hand Jack over.

Jack wobbles out of a nap, blearily looking up at Abigail. She smiles and says "Hello baby," before sitting quietly on the barrel across from Arthur, opening her coat and letting down her shirt to let Jack feed.

Arthur holds a spoonful of food out to her quietly as she does, much to her complaint -- "I'm just feeding him first-" she says, but Arthur just shoots back - "I'm just _helping_."

She rolls her eyes, but she obligingly meets the spoon when he lifts it to her lips.

"How's your day been," she asks, chewing a little.

"S'fine. Why're you asking?" He says, scooping another bite for her.

"Dunno. Just figure you're going a little crazy, sitting here." She takes it when he lifts it to her lips.

"Yeah, a little, I guess. I've been updating my journal."

"Anything interesting?" She says, chomping on a carrot.

"Not really. Just writing about the past couple months, you know."

"Any drawings?"

He forgets sometimes that she knew about his drawing habit -- he tried to hide it most of the time, or at least make no big deal out of it -- people started getting strange around him when they knew, asking if he'd draw something for them, or otherwise commenting. When Dutch looked over his shoulder he always had the urge to throw his journal across camp, not show the man his clumsy, untrained hand. Dutch was an artist too, although one of a much better caliber.

But Abigail was...

Well, he'd shown her, a couple journals ago, some drawings. That night in the hotel. 

He still goes back there sometimes. Mentally. He's sure she does too -- goes back to that quiet, moonlit night when he sighed, took off his coat, laid it around her near-bare shoulders, and sat in an armchair to try to sleep while she sat on the bed near mute with fear. The night she watched him with terror and trust in equal measures. 

Unable to sleep, he'd finally taken out the journal, lit a candle, and started to draw. She edged closer, and he had asked if she wanted to see. When she nodded, he stood, and sat on the bed beside her. She sat beside him, their shoulders touching, her eyes on the page.

He'd told her stories, got her laughing a little, and she'd added a careful but rough self portrait to his journal. Carefully, even though no words came from her, signed the little drawing "Abigail."

"Well, hello, Abigail," he'd said quietly, into the space of the hotel room, "Nice to meet you."

So here, now, him feeding her while she nurses the baby he's increasingly feeling like a father to - 

He opens up the journal. Turns it around. She takes it with her free hand, looks at the loose drawing of Dutch and Hosea -- "Ooh, yeah, I saw that earlier too," she says, before taking another mouthful of stew off the offered spoon. "Looks nice. Feels like Dutch and Hosea."

That was it, he thinks, it was how she commented on his drawings -- not too sentimental, not too precious, but picking up what he needs to hear about something.

"I like-" she says, swallowing her bite, "The way you drew the hand. It feels nice and soft, very gentle. Maybe it's this line here?"

She gestures to the outer curve of Hosea's hand -- he agrees. It's one of the better hands he's drawn.

He looks up at her, offers another spoonful of stew.

Thinks, very briefly, very easily, _Love her._

She hands the journal back.

Heat flushes into his face, although only a little. Still, she notices, and smirks. "Aw," she says, "Are you getting flustered from my compliment?"

"No," he scoffs, playing it up a bit. The thought is neither unwelcome or startling, but he's never quite put it that way to himself. Never been so blunt in his own head that, yes, he loves her. Maybe not romantically, maybe just in the way you love a dear friend, but having her sitting there, smiling at him... it's good.

His damn fool mouth runs before he can catch it -- "Would you want to model for me some time?"

She looks up at him, taking the last, scraped-up bite from the spoon.

"Model?" She says, chewing around the word.

"Um. Yeah," he says, "It'd be casual -- just you as normal but I'd be watching and drawing. You'd... have to hold still, if I asked."

It's a lot harder to explain the concept in a way that doesn't sound completely unappealing.

"Uh, it'd help me out-" He continues, "I'm usually doing gesture so I kind of slack on drawing form-"

"Yeah, sure," she laughs, quietly, dipping her head to look at Jack, who suckles dutifully.

"Oh." He says.

"Sure," she repeats, rolling her shoulders, "I trust you. When?"

"Not now. Soon, though. I'll let you know."

"Alright," she says, smiling a little. "Eat your stew. I didn't help Pearson with it just to have it get cold."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Things are progressing! The journal is back in play!  
> I'm massively busy, but still writing. Next chapter is more meditative --we'll be in March. Depending on how the next few weeks go (and i don't die from overwork) the next update should be in two weeks. Maybe three.   
> The book is almost ready to be printed! To those of you who have reached out, thank you so much! Your support means the world to me. If you haven't reached out and are interested in a copy (the first five chapters, black and white illustrations, 8.5" x 5.5") please email me at emagnan97@gmail.com.   
> Kudos and comments are always appreciated!


	12. Some Fool Doing an Errand For His Family

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> cw: animal death

The thunder claps. Rain's driving hard.

Boadicea doesn't want to be out here, but there's little choice -- this is how it is in March, rain melting away the last dregs of snow, of winter.

Lightning strikes close, the concussive sound startling Boadicea bad -- bad enough it takes a couple minutes to get her to even consider being calm. Sogged to the bone, exhausted, and ready to sleep, but miles and miles away from home, Arthur pats Boadicea gently.

 _Okay,_  he thinks, _it's a day later than I said I'd be out. But I guess I'm gonna come home even later than that._

It's been a long ride out, even just across the state and into the mountains. Thankfully Josiah's drop spot was in the valleys of the Rockies, not past them, and Arthur didn't have to try and pass through those at this time of year.

It had been one of those places rich folks go to get a little healthful break -- weirdly popular even in the late winter like this. Spring had officially rolled around, sure, but it was barely above freezing most days.

He'd dropped the note off in their post office -- more like a hotel lobby than the post offices he's used to, and they would wait to see if Trelawny showed up at all, coming around dressed to the nines (or at least, what he would call the sixes). And then he'd waited around, on the hope the man would be there himself.

Josiah didn't show up, but it had been a break, of sorts. Being decidedly un-rich, there wasn't a _lot_  he could partake in. But he had some good meals and a good night's sleep in an altogether overpriced hotel, so things weren't all bad.

And his ankle's better at least. And he's not having nightmares.

And he'd had some fun, too, being away from the camp. No nagging from Dutch, no arguments with Bill, none of Grimshaw's familiar chiding -- All of 'em, they got to be a lot sometimes, so it was nice to go somewhere where no one knew you.

He could walk into those dining halls and find a table for one and the waitress wouldn't know him, just see him as a another face to serve, and that would be enough. Maybe he could flirt a little, compliment her, laugh when she blushes but smiles.

But it's reminded him that the camp was home.

As rough as it could be sometimes, the living in a caravan, the exertion of jobs and being just on the edge of destitution -- there was something to the way Hosea would reach up and ruffle his hair, how Jenny would rib him, how everyone treated him as -- son, brother, _friend_  rather than brute, outsider, _danger_.

That was less nice.

People out here didn't look past his outside very much. Didn't try to see his inner depths -- what little inner depths he has -- and why would they? It's not like he's doing the same for them.

So, as pleasant as the break is, he eagerly leaves when his job is done.

Now, he's nearly home -- half a day's ride, at most -- but there's no way he can make it in this driving rain, this stuff that feels like it saps the heat out of him with each raindrop. Especially not with Boadicea so startled.

He pulls off at the first homestead he sees.

It's a farmhouse -- nice looking thing. Simple and unpretentious, painted a pale blue, a porch and a little garden out front.

He knocks loudly. _Please let them be up, please let them be up_  -- he'd rather not repeat the time when he was around 20 and got split off from Dutch and Hosea for a night. Woke up to a shotgun, then, pressed to his chest by some skittish farm wife. That was quite the explanation he had to spin, why precisely he was sleeping on her porch.

Inside, from the second floor, is a harsh grunt, and then a minute later, the sound of feet descending a staircase.

When the door opens, there's a stocky, even maybe portly, gentleman standing there. Behind him, his slim wife, her hand on his shoulder. They both look dead tired.

The man actually looks a lot like Pearson. If Pearson hasn't explained all his family were quite far flung -- Arthur would be tempted to say this man was his cousin. Maybe even his brother.

"Another one?" the man says, squinting.

"Uh," Arthur says, "Good evening. I was wondering if I could take shelter in your folkses' barn tonight, seeing as it is... quite rainy." He gestures to the rain somewhat lamely, like they can't just look over his shoulder.

The man screws up his brows -- a near perfect copy of Pearson's "A-special-request?-I-don't-take-special-requests" face.

His wife just laughs, though.

"Yeah sure," she says, combing thin fingers through her curly hair, "There's a feller up in the loft tonight, but if you don't mind the stable?"

"No ma'am, was hoping you'd have lodging for my horse as well."

"Head on over," she laughs, "Fella's sick or something, so he won't talk much."

"Thank you, ma'am, sir. Real kind of you. I don't have much on me right now, but -- here -" He reaches into his pocket and takes out a fold of bills.

"Aw, put away your money," the woman laughs, and her husband just sighs and kisses her cheek before heading back up their stairs. "We got everything we need."

"You sure, ma'am? It's money I don't really need."

"I'm sure, yeah. Go on, barn's just a little ways along."

He dips his wet hat and mounts Boadicea for the short walk over.

The barn's just over a lip of earth. A big thing, robust. Matches the house, painted a good, vibrant red. Looks like it was painted fairly recently, too.

He slides the door open for Boadicea once he dismounts, leading her in. She shakes her head, splattering a little water on him.

"Hey," he says, but she looks entirely unimpressed by the quiet warning. She can easily call his bluff.

The barn smells like hay, horses, the smell of rain -- old wood. The tension in his back leeches away with it, his eyelids drooping against his will.

There's a little lantern lit up in the loft, the soft glow of the flame casting warm shadows even in the reasonable darkness of the barn.

He's not sure if the fella's asleep of not -- probably the same as him, some fool doing an errand for his family, got caught in the rain.

His family...

Arthur marvels at how the word feels. It's been a short time but it feels like he's taken to this role -- helping Abigail, a kind of surrogate father and husband -- real easy.

If it'd been Jenny's baby, he'd've helped but...

But it wouldn't be like this.

He wouldn't sleep beside Jenny every night. Wouldn't trust her with his nightmares. Wouldn't look at her kid and feel all the world like he has to protect the babe, keep him safe.

He wouldn't feel like his left shoulder belongs to Jenny's head, wouldn't smile a little when he'd watch Jenny do something-

Wouldn't have these thoughts about -- if John were alive, what would this thing be?

Would it have been -- normal? Would it have been just... Arthur, unrelated and unneeded? Would John have wisened up, finally, dropped Arthur to focus on his wife and child? Would Arthur float back to his own little weird family, back to being the son of two outlaws?

Would John have kept him around?

Would Arthur himself had insisted?

If John had stayed alive --

He hitches Boadicea and settles into a pile of clean hay. Despite the chill outside, it's warm in the barn. He hangs up his outer coat -- the inner layers aren't too cold. His trousers are definitely soaked, though. He lights a lantern quietly, holding his chilled hands around its glass to warm the creaking joints in his fingers.  
If John had stayed alive, Arthur hopes he would have kept him around.

That - that he could have still brushed his fingers low on John's waist. Laughed when he jumped, brushed fond fingers along his reddening cheekbones.

He might not ask for the kind of intimacy they shared -- not the quiet moments they used to secret (although it was never secret that they did it, just when and where), where their hands grabbed and caressed and slicked along each other -- but to enjoy the man who he'd come to love so much would have been enough.

He wonders how Abigail would have taken it.

If she would have finally said no -- if she would have insisted -- _he has a baby now. No time for affairs_. He would've respected it. He's always felt weird splitting John's affection, always wondered if Abby just tolerated him as a flight of fancy.

Or if maybe-

If maybe she would welcome him. If things would be no different except that John would be on his other side, his lean arm slung just below Arthur's ribs. If Arthur's right shoulder would belong to John, like his left belongs to Abby.

His mind drifts -- he settles deeper into the haystack, head falling against his shoulder -- to that world. Where all was well and John was alive and he was loved by the both of 'em, where he was loved so much he was a Marston too. Where Abby slept in between them and they loved her. Where John would watch completely rapt when Abigail starts singing to Jack. Where John would sing along - John was a good singer, with a sharp ear -- and Arthur would try too and no one would fault him for trying. Where it would feel like his blood was right, and clean, and forgiven.

It isn't this world.

It really ain't.

John was dead, and there was no force of justice in the world who would look at the things he's done and _forgive_.

The thunder rumbles far off. The sound of rain -- quiet against the sturdy roof of the barn.

He'll leave in the morning.

But for now -- in the quiet of this barn, watching the fella's lantern flicker quietly -- Arthur falls asleep thinking about John.

 

The dream he has is quiet, hazy.

There is a boy -- no, a man. A boy-man with dark hair that curls around his cheeks, with an undeniable levity in the sunlight -- it must be dawn, the pale yellow way the light worms through trees. And the man-boy looks so much like John-

But it's not John, he realizes, as he gets closer. Not with those gentle freckles. Not with that sweet up-turned nose. Not with the slope of shoulder, of ankle that speaks undeniably to Abigail.

It's Jack. Grown up.

He's handsome as can be, with two gorgeous parents like that. Dressed just toeing the line of city and country, undeniably Abigail's son. And he's bent in this clearing -- some quiet clearing with these trees, and the quiet light of daybreak-- and there is-

There's a deer at his feet. And at first Arthur thinks it's a vision of Jack skinning something he killed, and despite it all, Arthur has this sick lurch in his stomach-

But the buck is dying -- is sick, battered. In the dream, the way dreams are, Arthur knows this, even though there's no outside damage to the deer.

Jack kneels beside it, gently sinking his slim fingers into the short fur, slowly stroking the deer's head.

The buck lets out a shuddering whine -- a near-pathetic sound, one that rattles in Arthur's chest to hear it. But Jack strokes slowly, murmuring soft words, telling it it was all alright now, thanking it for everything -- speaking quietly.

There are tears in Jack's eyes -- he has to be a hale twenty-five, not quite as roughed up as Arthur was at that age or as John was, but with some quiet pain that weighs the man's shoulders. Arthur nearly can't breathe, knows Jack can't see him.

Jack quietly thanks it -- why is he thanking it? He thanks it for being there, being with them... for everything it did, for the family. For the hat --

Arthur realizes Jack is wearing his hat.

Jack thanks the deer for the happiness it brought. For helping Ma and Pa get better, heal, for making sure he had a good childhood and was safe and loved and could grow up _normal_ -

Arthur falls to his knees and throws his arms around Jack's shoulders -- so broad, just like his Pa's.

Jack sniffles wetly -- looks up to the sky, tears streaming down his face, "Are you there, Uncle Arthur?" Hoarse, timid, the way he's heard Dutch call out the name -- "Annabelle-"

Arthur nods against that shoulder, watching this boy who he loves now and will love then weep for him. But Jack doesn't seem to really feel him-

Jack dips his head. Murmurs hoarsely, "Thank you. For everything."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ~Dreams~  
> We're going on -- more plot coming along. It's been a little more character/relationship driven lately -- there's more actual plot and action coming up soon. I can't believe I'm almost graduated! Maybe I'll have more time?  
> To those who ordered books -- thank you so much for your support. I'm super excited that yall care enough about this little thing I just started writing for fun, and I'm super excited that some of the RDR cast have copies too! If you're one of 'em, interested to read the rest of the story....... hello.  
> Kudos and comments are always appreciated!


	13. Good Luck, Stranger

Arthur wakes to wet cheeks.

Whatever that dream was -- and he grasps at it so desperately, so afraid to lose it, the weird devastated warmth that lingers in his chest -- melts away.

How do you describe that? That confusing mix of guilt and love and bone-deep-sadness. How it swirls in his stomach and throat, not choking or constrictive, not like a noose, not nauseous-

Jack cradling the buck's head lingers. So gentle, so kind.

Half-awake, Arthur rubs at his eyes, nuzzles his face into the sleeve of his shirt -- his reliable shirt, blue with white stripes, loaded with memory. The feeling of tears clings to his skin. He can't remember where he got the shirt anymore.

Breathing deep, Arthur rouses, that lingering sick sticking to his throat.

The hay tickles his neck. It's fresh stuff, but real scratchy, digging into his collar. The barn is quiet, dim light filtering in through the now-open door, the sounds of the animals rousing. In the back, where he supposes the chicken coop is, he hears one of homeowners collecting eggs. From the quietness of the footfalls, he figures it's the little curly-haired wife.

The air smells like rain -- like water left overlong in a tin cup, like moonlight -- but it seems like the rain's let off, at least from what he can hear in here.

Jack looked -

Wise, maybe. Smart. Kind. Looked like a kid with weight on his shoulders but lightness in his heart. A man who helped.

Arthur thinks again about John - focuses his eyes on that still-flickering lamplight, up in that loft.

John, he thinks, John, you're going to miss so much.

And he lies there, watching the cast light against the rafters of the barn -

And he misses John. His best friend. He should be here, now, with Arthur. The two of them guffawing laughter and kissing in the quiet of this barn, hoping and wondering when they'd get back home to Abby's sharp scolding and always-affectionate hands. The two of them returning to little Jack and making Abby laugh spinning with him in turn.

After a moment, the little wife passes by his haystack. She carries eggs in a basket, one of the hens perched moodily on her shoulder like some rural pirate's parrot.

She smiles a little at him. He can't help but smile back.

"Would you be wanting some breakfast, stranger?" she asks quietly.

"No, thank you, ma'am," he says, scrubbing his face again. If she noticed the tear-tracks, she says nothing, and it's a small mercy. "I think I best be moving on."

"You're sure?" she says, "I don't think the storm's passed."

"I'll be fine, ma'am," He says, "I need to get home."

"Suit yourself," she says, settling the basket of eggs beside the ladder before she climbs it. The chicken hops off, skittering back into the open space.

Arthur gets up slowly. Watches the her stride surely up the ladder, lean off its top, peer around at the stranger.

"Mister," she says, quiet.

Arthur's focus shifts to dressing again, slipping on his now-only-damp coat. It ain't so bad. He'll dry, and he was warm, and he slept well, he thinks. It wasn't so bad.

There's a reedy sound from the loft - "Easy now, you're still sick" - and Arthur settles Lyle's old hat on his head. His chest aches - thinks at once about Lyle, about Beatrice, about John and Abby. About Jack. About the pitiful buck, its limp head cradled in his son's lap.

_His_ son?

He slips the saddle back onto Boadicea's back, and leads her out of the barn, shrugging out his shoulders.

And then...

He looks back. For a moment. The chasm in his chest crashes back into itself, like lake water cutting back when you throw a rock into it, he thinks about Lyle-John-Abby-Jack -

Looks up at the little wife, her honey-colored curls, and how she leans over the stranger, asking if he'd like breakfast- how in this light and at this angle she could be someone else, how she could look like Eliza-

And he thinks again about the stranger - the man being like him, the man who may not be like him at all and yet -

And he thinks about John.

He calls up to the man, "Good luck, stranger!"

The little wife looks down at him, and even from the distance he can read that expression -- a look of confusion.

The moment passes. Arthur snaps out from his thoughts, from his dream continued. Turns, sharply, knowing he's made a right fool of himself.

He guesses he startles the stranger full-awake from the heavy bump he hears, and that wife's little voice telling him to _be careful!_  but Arthur is out the door already, a flush of heat over his cheekbones.

He doesn't know why he does it, but it feels right -- to wish himself luck, in a way.

He doesn't think of the buck again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I have returned, out of schedule and out of sorts. I had a little crisis of confidence, whether or not this story was worth telling. But I have some stuff I'm working on. Most of next chapter. Another plot point. The promised drawing scene. More dramatic irony.   
> Thank you to everyone who bought physical copies. And thank you to those who have commented -- it gave me the courage to try again, laughs.  
> Kudos are always appreciated, and comments doubly so. They let me know that y'all are still interested. Even if it's just a <3 heart or a keysmash.


	14. Leave the Place Where John's Ghost Haunts

Arthur is back on the road quick enough after that.

Boadicea feels sluggish - she never loved the rain, not since she was born in New Austin, some of those places it will never rain. She canters along dutifully though, a trooper no matter what. He pats her neck, and she shudders her head. A little snippy.

It will be good to be home, he thinks, gritting his teeth as the rain starts again, a few meager drops against his face and neck.

The trees loom overhead here, dark and shivering in the early morning wind. The light is thin.

It will be good to be home, he thinks more doggedly, as the rain comes down again, harder and more insistent than before.

Annie used to spin stories about opposite places when she was still alive - If it was real dry, she'd describe a lake and how cold the water would be, how any breeze would chill your wet skin; if it was hot, she'd describe going trekking in winter, the overlarge steps you have to take through snow, the burn of cold air in your lungs.

Arthur thinks of that now, of the opposite of wet and cold -- warm and dry.

Comforts are hard won with folks like them. But he finds he has a few, now.

The armchair in the house. The heat of the kitchen, Pearson's jolly laughter wafting up the stairs. Abigail in her bed -- no, their bed. Arthur's tent still stands, in the open floor of the sitting room, but he doesn't sleep there anymore. Just stores his things there.

He's been liking this place, the old lodging house. It's steady, easy. Almost homey. Watertight for the most part, he thinks, shivering.

Dutch is outside when Arthur rides up. Despite the pissing rain and the chill in the air, Dutch is only in his shirtsleeves, clearly manic. The man's dark curls stick to his neck.

 _Where's Hosea?_  Arthur thinks darkly.

"Arthur!" Dutch shouts, throwing his arms wide. Always a showman. "Where have you been, my boy?"

"Got waylaid by the rain," he responds, when he's close enough. There is something unhinged in Dutch's eyes. "Where's Hosea?"

"Inside. Resting. His lungs - Listen, Arthur, we'll move out in the morning-"

"In the morning?" Arthur rasps. He dismounts Boadicea, hitching her out of the rain. "Tomorrow?"

"Yes indeed, son, we'll go somewhere warmer, drier -- No one can take this wet anymore-"

Hosea can't, he means. Something must've happened to Hosea.

"Awright. We ain't gonna scope out places first?"

"No, no, no need-"

"Does Hosea know?"

Dutch's mouth freezes, half a smile, mid-sentence. "Why do I have to tell him?" he says, lips flattening into something almost like a sneer.

Lord. Dutch's moods, like this, were difficult.

"Seeing as he's your confidante. Seeing as he helps you runs this thing. Did you tell anyone else but me?" Arthur tries to steer them under the eaves but Dutch stays resolutely in the rain. "You're gonna get sick."

"I think I can make one decision without you second guessing me, Arthur."

"I'm not second guessing you, Dutch. Just saying maybe we should move slower, for the sake of Hos-"

There it is again - when Dutch was manic, lit from within -- when his dark, dark eyes looked like they had comets streaking through them.

Thunder sounds across the plains, light flashing.

But the fire undoes itself behind his expression, shutters back. Dutch shrugs, shivering in the cold. If the man notices the chill, it's not clear. He just laughs -- says, "Maybe you're right, son. Let's go and look at the place tomorrow, huh?"

"Okay," Arthur says, shaking water out of his own hair, "Dry off well. Miss Grimshaw will have our asses if you get a cold from standing out here in March."

Dutch chuckles, but there's no levity in it.

Arthur sighs, steps up into the boarding house. Dutch lingers outside, but when he was like this it was like trying to herd a cat. He'll come in eventually. Arthur'd learned over time that if you tried to physically move a manic Dutch, you'd just get a fist to the eye.

Grimshaw stands from a chair, approaching already with her apron ready. "Mister Morgan! You big fool, you'll catch your death riding through this!"

He bends his neck obligingly, as she reaches up to towel off his hair, "I know, I know. Just needed to get back."

"Was Mister Trelawny there? Did you see him?"

"Nope, just a lot of rich folk."

He feels the electricity before the whole house shakes with cacophonous thunder -- before the light floods in through the windows, before they both hear the creak-

And then a crash.

They run to the door, to see a collapsed pine, at least fifteen, twenty feet, collapsed into debris - mere inches from Dutch's feet.

Even manic, Dutch looks down on the tree like he understand the gravity of what just happened. And he grips for one of his watches - reads its time, head tipping quickly, in time with the ticking of the watch. Susan reaches for him, while Javier, out on guard duty, hops back into the house, shaking off the rain. "Too dangerous to be out," he says, just as shaken. Davey and Jenny, down one Mac, come out to peek around, and Bill must've been woken up from a nap, based on how bleary he looks. Even Hosea, in his nightshirt, looking absolutely miserable and thisclose from smacking someone, until he sees the lazily bleeding gash on Dutch's shirt, where a piece of splintered wood cut through cloth and skin.

But Arthur can hear Jack's pitiful cries louder than anything else. Louder than Grimshaw's flustered chiding for Dutch, louder than Hosea's scolding -- _what the hell were you doing out!_  Louder than Jenny's little giggle, helping to dry Javier off. No one else seems to notice.

Arthur slips out.

Goes to the bedroom, enters after knocking, just once.

Jack's crying, but he doesn't hear Abby. That's the strangest. Even exhausted, Abigail always said _something_  to him.

When he enters, she's standing by the window, Jack wriggling and crying on the bed. But Abigail makes no movement, not until she hears him -

"Abby?" he says -

She turns -

And he sees blind fear. She's pasty white with her eyes big -

"You're home!" She sobs, stepping towards him but her legs buckling under her. She crumples to the floor. "You're okay-"

He kneels with her, resting a hand on her shoulder. "Yeah, I'm here, anwylyd-"

Thunder cracks again, and Abigail yelps like a beaten dog, and something makes a lot of sense to Arthur.

They hadn't been in lightning country. It hadn't been warm enough. Or it was too dry, or too flat. He'd never seen Abigail during a storm like this -

"Abigail," he says, quiet, "Are you afraid of thunder?"

She almost responds, but then thunder cracks once more, so so close, and she yelps, cowering against the side table with a heavy _t_ _hump_ , tears springing to her eyes.

"Jesus," he says, "That bad, huh?"

She doesn't say anything, just sobs, a pitiful keen. The heart-wrenching almost-sound that stays in his ears. She's curled into herself, and despite Jack, despite everything he knows about her, about Abigail as an adult, as a woman not a girl, she looks so child-like. Her big eyes and her mouth, her pose.

Arthur gets up, picks Jack up from where he lies on the bed. Cradles the babe to his chest, humming softly. He must be so scared, too. He doesn't need to be changed, or fed, far as Arthur can tell, so it's just a need for comfort.

He can hear Hosea's rasping voice pitching, berating Dutch for his foolishness -- and Dutch will be properly chastened, the only person manic Dutch believed or listened to was Hosea, until that voice breaks into dry, painful-sounding coughs. And then Dutch's voice takes a pitch, all the fear apparent.

Abigail must've been watching. If she was afraid of thunder, and then saw that whole mess, he wouldn't blame her for breaking down like this.

Even he's a little shaken, in all honesty. Knowing that Dutch, or even he, could've been killed if they had just been in the wrong place. But wasn't that their whole lives?

"Abby," he says, but she just trembles, staring at the floor with big eyes.

Hosea is still coughing. It's been raining like crazy. The humidity was bad for all of them.

"Sparrow," he says, and her eyes shift up to him. "I'll help."

He stands, offering his hand.

She takes it, tentatively. Her fingertips are cold.

"How long were you by that window?" he asks, rubbing his thumb over them.

She tries to say something, but her voice doesn't come out. She covers her throat, like she's embarrassed, her tears having slowed.

"It's okay."

Another clap of thunder -- close, but not as close as before. She twitches, throwing herself forward into his chest. Clinging.

"It's okay. It's moving further away. D'you hear it?"

She nods against his side.

"Cmon, get up on the bed." It might be midmorning, but no one was gonna be able to do much today. If Grimshaw came looking- well, they'd deal with it.

Jack is still crying too, but softer, more whimpery. Just like his momma.

He settles her up on the bed, wraps her in one of the sturdy blankets. He climbs up too, plopping Jack in the hollow space of his lap. And then, just like before, when she was calming him down from his nightmares, he takes her hand.

He runs his thumb along the ridge of hers, and he hopes - finds, after a moment - her breathing lining up with his, slowing real easy.

It's easy.

Lightning -- one count, two count -- boom.

Abby tenses. Like she's trying to cut his fingers off. But he just holds her hand.

He leans forward, bringing another blanket over his shoulders. Leans forward until their foreheads are touching, until she leans into him, until they are sharing breath.

Lightning -- this time he counts aloud -- "one Mississippi, two Mississippi, three-" -- boom.

She tenses again, but he squeezes her hand before she can. She twitches.

"It's going away again," he says.

"Yeah," she chatters, breath shaky.

"It's going away," he says, quietly. There's nothing better to say, really. What's he going to say? _You don't have to worry?_  Not when he himself had shivered, Dutch's broad, tall shape dwarfed by this tree that God had felled with one booming strike? _It's nothing to be afraid of?_  Not when Arthur thinks of being struck by lightning, not when he thinks of all the households he's seen go up in flames after being struck.

"I've-" she says, "Always. Been afraid."

"Yeah."

"It's never- It wasn't so bad-" she swallows, "Lightning causes fires."

"Now?"

"No. A long," she swallows, burying her face against his neck, "Long time ago."

He hums, strokes her thumb. Just like she didn't press, he won't either. Maybe something with Bronte. Maybe something from earlier. He doesn't know.  
Instead he just hums, quiet and low. Something simple. An old sea shanty Da used to sing, something Grandda sang. _I thought I heard the old man say / Leave her, Johnny, leave her..._

Her breath shudders against his neck, until she pulls away, wiping her eyes. Jack's tired himself out, head pillowed on Arthur's thigh.

"You're a fool," she says, after a moment. There is a flash of lightning again, he counts, but covers her ears with the corners of the blanket. The thunder is less concussive, more a rumble. Less startling. Sends less of a shiver down his spine.

"I am, hm?"

"Making me worry like that," she says, when she gets her voice back, her brows furrowing, "It hasn't been so long since-"

Her expression shifts. The set of her mouth goes strange, her jaw clenching-

"Yeah," he murmurs, pulling her forward, against his shoulder, "Sorry."

"Bastard," she spits, but there's no heat under it.

"Yeah."

He smooths a hand down her back, humming again quietly.

Jack whimpers, dozing off quietly.

"I'll put Jack in his crib?" Arthur murmurs, bumping his forehead against hers.

"Okay," she says, kind of fragile, kind of calm.

Arthur carefully scoops the kid up -- he's growing well, no longer the fragile newborn he once was. Settles him gently against his shoulder, hums to him too. Abigail wipes her eyes as Arthur tucks Jack in, pulling Abby's weighty knitted blanket over him until he's cozy.

Abby looks up at him with red-rimmed but almost normal eyes.

The thunder is quiet, and if he doesn't look out the window, he doesn't notice the lightning. The rest of the house is quiet now -- either folks broke apart to go work in silence, or things were mended and Grimshaw insisted on rest. Either way was good. Either way, the two of them were left alone.

Arthur gets up onto the bed, in his usual spot, and lays back, opening his arm in a tacit _come here_.

"It's morning," she says.

"And it's storming," he supplies, "Nothing to do but catch a little more sleep."

She stares down at him, unimpressed. It's a pretty cute look.

"Just an offer," he says, "I'm gonna take a little rest either way."

She sighs, rolling her eyes a little. But-

She cocks her head. Purses her lips. And sighs, a little, through her nose.

But then she lays down next to him, resting her head on his shoulder.

It's a new thing they've been doing, without Jack there -- on warmer days, Jack goes in the crib and Abby still lays her head on his shoulder. But it's closer - with Jack on his chest, he had never noticed how intimate it was. The warmth of her, the skin of her thigh touching his. Her hair tickling his neck.

He wraps an arm around her now. She rests a hand on his chest, over his heart. He pulls the quilt over them, warding off the chill.

A low rumble of thunder.

Abby flinches, but it's nothing compared to before.

"Is..." she murmurs, "Is Dutch okay?"

He hums, closing his eyes. "Yeah, well enough, anyway. Just a cut."

"And Hosea?"

"Creaky."

She laughs softly.

"I'm glad no one got hurt."

"Me too."

She touches his collarbone gently. He likes her fingers, a little callused and blunt.

"Are we really moving in the morning?"

"Nah," he says, "Least I don't think so. Last thing Dutch said was that we'll check out the new place -- dunno why he wants to move us now."

She sighs. Tucks her face against his neck. Her mouth hovers just above his pulse. He hopes she can't hear it, the way it kicks a little.

What is he, a teenager?

"Maybe it's better to get out," she mumbles, "Leave the place where John's ghost haunts."

Thunder rumbles, a little closer. Abby flinches, but Arthur is already stroking her back, humming again.

"Do you have that?" she whispers, words wrung out of her, breaking, "Moments when you forget that John is dead?"

All the time.

He leans his head into hers, and nods.

"I have - I'll think 'where's John?' and - and every time, I have to remember."

He thinks again of that stranger in the loft. How Arthur had wished -- wanted it to be John.

But it wasn't. It wouldn't be.

It'd been five months. John had been out longer, when he would tramp out, but they'd always known when he did -- they would send him off, help him pack his things.

John had been with Arthur through everything. Arthur still finds himself reaching for John when he's excited, still finds him expecting John's face beside him in bed, just like Abby's is now.

Arthur gently strokes Abigail's hair.

"Yeah," is all he can say.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Kudos and comments are always appreciated!


	15. His Fathers

The day, after they wake from their nap, is normal. Normal as can be expected, after all that.

Dutch comes down off the mania and slides into depression -- Grimshaw tuts, as she always does, and says in that tight way of hers that he'll "be back to normal soon." The phrase always strikes Arthur as true, but cruel in a way he can't quite figure out.

Hosea feels a little better, although only enough to dress and slowly creak down the stairs. He's still a bit snippy though, mulling over a book with a cup of Pearson's camp coffee.

Around supper, Hosea and Dutch and Arthur sit at the kitchen table and talk business, beside an in-withdrawal Orville who just rests his head on the table. Dutch contributes nearly nothing to the conversation, except to perk occasionally and offer some bit of half-bitten wisdom before settling back down into melancholy. Arthur would laugh at the way he and Orville are a match pair, if there was any humor in the situation at all.

There's a farm, apparently, recently vacated through a series of tragedies -- the father had gotten cancer, they said, and the family couldn't make enough to keep him alive or keep themselves there once he died. Real sad, but they left behind almost everything -- fled in the night to avoid debtors. No one had been back in some time. Lots of land, none too far from here. 

"There's a barn, and a farmhouse. Couple of out-buildings too," Hosea says, tapping the map with a terse finger. "It's not a bad place to move."

"No, it isn't," says Arthur, pinching at his lower lip, "But -- why move now?"

Hosea levels a stare at Dutch, who sits at an odd angle in his chair, eyes a bit vacant. 

Silence stretches. Dutch stares back at Hosea, Hosea levelly near-glares at Dutch.

"Never mind," Arthur says, standing and offering his hand to Hosea, "We'll take a look tomorrow. Me and Dutch and Javier."

"Javier?" Dutch says, voice hollow. Neither he nor Hosea have stopped staring at each other.

"He's quick and wily."

"Not like John," Dutch says, and though it's true, Arthur says nothing.

Instead he just shakes the hand again until Hosea looks at him. "Come on, Hosea, there's a seat by the fireplace with your name on it."

Hosea sighs, blinking out of his staredown with Dutch. Dutch's expression shifts ever-so-minutely, his brows knitting the merest fraction -- but Arthur can read it clear. It's despondent. It's one more minute spent away from Hosea.

Hosea takes Arthur's hand, stands with a long, bitten groan. Notices the expression too. Reaches over and pats Dutch's hand lightly.

"When you're feeling better," Hosea says, gentle as swan's down, "Come up and join me."

"Okay," Dutch says, and smiles timidly. It's the first genuine smile he's seen on Dutch's face in a good long while, even if it's quiet and small.

Arthur helps Hosea up the stairs and settles him in. 

"All good?" Arthur asks.

Hosea smiles a brittle smile -- like a wince, but with a real warmth behind it. Both he and Arthur know Dutch will be up soon.

"Yes. Go back to Abigail," he says, "I'm sure she's missing you."

So Arthur does. Who is he to argue with Hosea? 

And that's kind of funny too. Arthur's love life has been... unsteady, suffice to say, but he never felt he lacked an idea of what good relationship was, not when Hosea and Dutch were in the picture.

Hosea and Dutch were an open secret -- hell, they weren't a secret at all, had been open about them being together since they roped Arthur into the gang. Anyone can see it -- the folks who don't, he thinks, don't have eyes.

For them --

Arthur would hesitate to call it easy. It wasn't easy, and Arthur knows that. Knows all the times Hosea buried his face in his hands and either sobbed or cussed the man out. Knows all the time Dutch bends his neck as if asking for forgiveness, knows the quiet pleas from either of them that _wouldn't you just see I'm going to ruin you-_

But he's seen all the times that that quiet little smile finds itself on Dutch's face -- has seen the easy way his eyelids droop when Hosea's fingers scratch at his nape, how Hosea smiles more, laughs more when Dutch is around.

Abby is knitting when Arthur returns, and he finds himself warmed when she doesn't stop, just smiles up at him and keeps a-knitting.

He kicks off his boots, humming a little tune. Jack busies himself grabbing at blankets and at the little Arthur doll, experimenting with it by rolling over it and rolling off it. He's bigger now, and very curious -- occasionally he sits up, legs akimbo, and stares out a window like a forlorn puppy. It's been very funny to watch.

When Arthur sits in his spot, Jack crawls up onto him. He knows Arthur in a way he doesn't others -- Bill or Javier don't get this kind of crawling-on.

Jack swats at Arthur's chest -- Arthur mocks hurt, calling a long "oww!" -- Abby giggles as she knits. It's a kind of play he's gotten used to -- Jack tests his limits and Arthur tries to show them where they are. He couldn't get mad at a kid, but there was no point in raising a bully.

After a while, Jack settles into the open space of his lap, gripping and gripping at Arthur's sturdy pantleg, testing his fingers against the tough duck. When Jack reaches for the Arthur doll, but finds it's too hard to surmount Arthur's calves, he babbles, slapping at Arthur's ankles.

"Yeah, yeah, little prince, I've got you," Arthur mock-grumbles, leaning forward to grab it for Jack.

Jack is satisfied with the little Arthur, who is a little more worse for wear these days. He's glad Hanna's craftsmanship is sturdy, or else Jackie might've lost the toy a lot earlier. When it gets too bad, either Arthur will stitch it up or they will return to the Alighieri's. Maybe Abby can pick out something new for herself, too. Meet Hanna.

Maybe they could tease Arthur together. He shudders a little. Maybe not.

Jack settles in, and Abigail carefully finishes part of the garment she's knitting.

Arthur, one hand on Jack's little back, thinks about his fathers.

Not Lyle. Lyle, Lyle didn't raise him, except in the way you raise a fighting dog -- to scare it until it gets mean. No, he thinks about Dutch and Hosea.

They were complimentary. Hosea -- thin, dressed in blue, elegant. Dutch -- broad, dressed in red, robust. Dutch was loud and Hosea was quiet. Dutch was nervy where Hosea was calm. Dutch was youthful where Hosea was wise.

And they are good for each other. Near-twenty years with them only proved as much, how Dutch doesn't go manic or depressed as much anymore, hovers around a certain kind of peace. How Hosea coaxes the best out of him, out of a man who could be brutal and uncaring but is not thanks to his husband's guidance.

Watching Dutch when Hosea was sick, too -- the careful, almost blase way he dotes by Hosea's bedside. How he's always buying new diversions for the days Hosea is laid up in bed -- a new crime novel, a puzzle or two -- the soft words Arthur hears him speak, resting Hosea's creaking hand in his --

It was love, of course. And Arthur has always wanted that love, been jealous of it.

Eliza hadn't wanted him around -- she's said it wasn't to bother him but there was something settled deep in his belly that knew that wasn't it. And Mary- Mary of course didn't like him. Loved him, maybe, but liked him? Not one bit. His loves had been fleeting and fickle and un-loving.

...

Although John had been different.

John was different, because he knew the kid. He'd grown with John -- watched him learn to read, learn to shoot, said goodbye the first time he went tramping on his own, cared for him every time he got hurt.

John knew him -- all his brutality, all the violence that thrums under his skin and the thick layer of tenderness beneath that; John knew he liked to be held and liked to be spoiled and treated kind and John, the overeager bastard, always delivered.

He'd only realized he loved John once he was an adult. Hadn't even occurred to him before that -- but John had loved him much longer, said he'd fallen for Arthur when he was about fifteen and never stopped. It was so strange and novel to be the one loved rather than the one loving. 

And when Abigail came along, it terrified him -- terrified him that she was going to take away the man who made him feel normal, wanted, admired. To watch John smile that way at her, the way he'd always smiled at Arthur, he wanted to scare Abby so that she would leave, leave and never come back, but-

But he never could, because Abigail had always been --

Always been his friend.

Treated him just like John did -- like a person. Like a silly, sweet man.

And he couldn't be jealous. 

Abigail shifts beside him, putting her arms through her new sweater.

It's too big for her. He notices the way the sleeves sag over her little hands, how the hem crumples against the bedsheets. 

She looks up at him. He looks down at her. 

She grins, breathy laughter forced from between her teeth. He grins too.

She shucks it off, and offers it to him.

But the sleeves stretch when he puts his arms through, and he retracts them before any damage is done.

Abigail carefully sews on buttons, working buttonholes on the other side, and Arthur does not mention that the sweater is the perfect size for John.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Kudos and comments are always appreciated!


End file.
